Ced-3 (original) (raw)

Ced-3 is one of the major protein components of the programmed cell death (PCD) pathway for Caenorhabditis elegans. There are in total 14 genes that are involved in programmed cell death, other important ones including ced-4 and ced-9 genes. The healthy nematode worm will require 131 somatic cell deaths out of the 1090 cells during the developmental stages. The gene initially encodes for a prototypical caspase (procaspase) where the active cysteine residue cleaves aspartate residues, thus becoming a functional caspase. Ced-3 is an executioner caspase (cysteine-dependent aspartate-directed protease) that must dimerize with itself and be initiated by ced-4 in order to become active. Once active, it will have a series of reactions that will ultimately lead to the apoptosis of targeted cells.