Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Review
. 2009 Aug 14;284(33):21783-21787.
doi: 10.1074/jbc.R109.023820. Epub 2009 May 27.

Lysosomes as "suicide bags" in cell death: myth or reality?

Boris Turk  1 , Vito Turk  2
Affiliations
Review

Lysosomes as "suicide bags" in cell death: myth or reality?

Boris Turk et al. J Biol Chem. .
No abstract available

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

FIGURE 1.
FIGURE 1.
Cysteine cathepsin pathways to apoptosis. Lysosome disruption results in release of cathepsins to the cytosol. Once in the cytosol, cathepsins process Bid and degrade the anti-apoptotic Bcl-2 homologs as well as XIAP. Proteolytic removal of anti-apoptotic Bcl-2 family members, similarly to their sequestration by BH3-only proteins, results in cytochrome c (cyto c) release from mitochondria, followed by executioner caspase (casp) activation and apoptosis. The possible link between the death receptor pathway and the lysosomes is also marked, as well as the possible caspase-independent cell death pathway. Intracellular cathepsin inhibitors serpins and stefins serve as cellular guardians, blocking escaped cathepsins.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Comment in

  • Latency of lysosomal proteinases.
    Savolainen H. Savolainen H. J Biol Chem. 2009 Oct 30;284(44):le10. doi: 10.1074/jbc.L109.023820. J Biol Chem. 2009. PMID: 19854842 Free PMC article. No abstract available.

References

    1. de Duve C. (1959) in Subcellular Particles (Hayashi T. ed) pp. 128–159, The Ronald Press Co., New York
    1. Cuervo A. M., Dice J. F. (1998) J. Mol. Med. 76, 6–12 - PubMed
    1. Turk B., Stoka V., Rozman-Pungercar J., Cirman T., Droga-Mazovec G., Oresić K., Turk V. (2002) Biol. Chem. 383, 1035–1044 - PubMed
    1. Eskelinen E. L., Tanaka Y., Saftig P. (2003) Trends Cell Biol. 13, 137–145 - PubMed
    1. Luzio J. P., Pryor P. R., Bright N. A. (2007) Nat. Rev. Mol. Cell Biol. 8, 622–632 - PubMed

Publication types

LinkOut - more resources