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The physiological relevance of death receptor-mediated apoptosis

Nature Reviews Molecular Cell Biology volume 15, page 633 (2014)Cite this article

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Two morsels of wisdom that I have acquired are: first, the study of spontaneously arisen mutant mice that have spectacular phenotypes will inevitably lead to remarkable insights; and second, outstanding scientific advances often result from the serendipitous convergence of previously independent lines of research. The paper that was published in 1992 by Watanabe-Fukunaga et al. exemplifies both of these points.

For a long time immunologists had been fascinated by the progressive lymphadenopathy and systemic autoimmune disease that the lpr and lprcg (allelic) mutant mouse strains develop. Meanwhile, the groups of Krammer (Trauth et al.) and Yonehara (Yonehara et al.) had unintentionally generated monoclonal antibodies that induced apoptotic cell death in certain human tumour-derived cell lines. The cloning of the Fas gene by Itoh et al. showed that FAS (also known as CD95, APO1 and TNFRSF6) is related to tumour necrosis factor receptor 1 (TNFR1) and (similarly to TNFR1) can trigger apoptosis when stimulated.

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References

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  1. Molecular Genetics of Cancer Division, The Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research, 1G Royal Parade, Parkville, 3052, Victoria, Australia

    Andreas Strasser

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  1. Andreas Strasser
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Correspondence to Andreas Strasser.

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Strasser, A. The physiological relevance of death receptor-mediated apoptosis. Nat Rev Mol Cell Biol 15, 633 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrm3875

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