Figure 3 C. elegans as a model system contains basic components of the cell death machinery Apoptosis regulation in C.elegans relies on a simple basic network of factors for which corresponding analogous components also can be found in higher organisms as given within brackets. Thus egl-1 is the worm representative for mammalian proapoptotic BH3-only proteins, ced-9 belongs to the antiapoptotic Bcl-2 family, ced-3 is the only worm caspase, and ced-4 is homologous to mammalian Apaf-1 (according to [Cecconi, 1999]). |