Yeast as a tool for studying proteins of the Bcl-2 family
Authors:Peter Polčic, Petra Jaká and Marek Mentel
doi: 10.15698/mic2015.03.193
Volume 2, pp. 74 to 87, published 02/03/2015.
Department of Biochemistry, Faculty of Natural Sciences, Comenius University, Bratislava, Slovak Republic.
Keywords:
yeast, Saccharomyces cerevisiae, Bcl-2 family, Bax, Bcl-XL, BH3-only
Corresponding Author(s):
Conflict of interest statement:
The authors declare no conflict of interest.
Please cite this article as:
Peter Polčic, Petra Jaká and Marek Mentel (2015). Yeast as a tool for studying proteins of the Bcl-2 family. Microbial Cell 2(3): 74-87.
© 2015 Polčic et al.. This is an open-access article released under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license, which allows the unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are acknowledged.
Abstract:
Permeabilization of the outer mitochondrial membrane that leads to the release of cytochrome c and several other apoptogenic proteins from mitochondria into cytosol represents a commitment point of apoptotic pathway in mammalian cells. This crucial event is governed by proteins of the Bcl-2 family. Molecular mechanisms, by which Bcl-2 family proteins permeabilize mitochondrial membrane, remain under dispute. Although yeast does not have apparent homologues of these proteins, when mammalian members of Bcl-2 family are expressed in yeast, they retain their activity, making yeast an attractive model system, in which to study their action. This review focuses on using yeast expressing mammalian proteins of the Bcl-2 family as a tool to investigate mechanisms, by which these proteins permeabilize mitochondrial membranes, mechanisms, by which pro- and antiapoptotic members of this family interact, and involvement of other cellular components in the regulation of programmed cell death by Bcl-2 family proteins.