Role of mitochondrial calpains in apoptosis / 中国药理学通报

Calpains are the family of Ca2+-activated cysteine pro-teases. Although calpains are considered to be cytoplasmic en-zymes, recent research has demonstrated that μ-calpain, m-cal-pain, calpain 10 and their endogenous inhibitor calpastatin are present in the mitochondria and play important roles both in caspase -dependent and-independent pathways in cell death phe-nomena. Calpains exert direct and indirect effects on the caspases and regulators of apoptosis pathway such as Bcl-2, Bax, Bid, promoting the release of Cyt-C, AIF, then result in cellular ap-optosis. To allow pharmacological targeting of these enzymes, thorough knowledge of their patterns of activation and further in-teractions with already known apoptotic pathways is necessary.