This document is designed primarily for online viewing. The quality of graphics in this document is inferior to the printed form and may vary considerably, depending on your browser, monitor type and individual printing capabilities. The CaspACE TM Assay System provides fluorogenic tetrapeptide substrates and selective inhibitors, which allow highly sensitive, rapid and quantitative measurement of these enzymes. The use of the two selective substrates and inhibitors provided in the system allows discrimination between ICE and CPP32 enzymatic activities. This assay may be used to measure ICE and CPP32 activities in either purified enzyme preparations or cell extracts and can be adapted for use in high throughput assay systems.
Active caspases participate in a cascade of proteolytic cleavage events in dying cells.
To date, twelve caspases have been characterized. Table 1 . Caspases Divided into Subfamilies Based on Sequence Homology. The cells were then lysed by exposure to four freeze-thaw cycles. The cell lysate was subjected to centrifugation at 16,000 x g for 20 minutes at 4 C and the supernatant fraction was used as the source of enzyme.