Apaf1 inhibition promotes cell recovery from apoptosis

Abstract

The protein apoptotic protease activating factor 1 (Apaf1) is the central component of the apoptosome, a multiprotein complex that activates procaspase-9 after cytochrome c release from the mitochondria in the intrinsic pathway of apoptosis. We have developed a vital method that allows fluorescence-activated cell sorting of cells at different stages of the apoptotic pathway and demonstrated that upon pharmacological inhibition of Apaf1, cells recover from doxorubicin- or hypoxia-induced early apoptosis to normal healthy cell. Inhibiting Apaf1 not only prevents procaspase-9 activation but delays massive mitochondrial damage allowing cell recovery.

Keywords

Apaf1 / Apaf1 inhibitors / apoptosis / apoptosome / autophagy / cell recovery

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2014 This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.