Degterev A, Huang Z, Boyce M, Li Y, Jagtap P, Mizushima N, Cuny GD, Mitchison TJ, Moskowitz MA, Yuan J.
Chemical inhibitor of nonapoptotic cell death with therapeutic potential for ischemic brain injury.
Nat Chem Biol. 2005 Jul;1(2):112-9.
PubMed.
The paper by Degterev et al. is a tour de force characterization of necroptosis, a non-apoptotic form of programmed cell death that involves necrosis and autophagy. Existence of this caspase-independent pathway was hypothesized from observations that several different cultured cell types undergo a common necrotic death upon stimulation of death domain receptor proteins in the presence of caspase inhibitors. To investigate a necroptosis pathway, the authors performed a chemical screen of 15,000 small molecules for necroptosis inhibition. Of these, a heterocyclic compound, Necrostatin-1 (Nec-1), was shown to be a very potent and specific inhibitor of necroptosis.
Application of Nec-1 did not block apoptosis, autophagy, or oxidative stress-induced necrosis, and also did not disrupt normal cellular physiology. Significantly, necroptosis was shown to be a delayed component of ischemia-associated neuronal cell death induced by cerebral artery occlusion in mice. Administration of Nec-1 attenuated the extent of ischemia-induced neuronal death and did not disrupt general brain physiology. Furthermore, Nec-1 exhibited an extended time window of protection and was able to exert its effects 6 hours after the onset of injury. The simultaneous addition of Nec-1 and the zVAD.fmk caspase inhibitor yielded an additive protective effect, suggesting a potentially effective therapeutic combination.
Overall, necroptosis has a delayed latency compared to apoptosis, and the authors hypothesize that it may act as a redundant mechanism to provide cells with an ability to die when they find themselves in an environment non-permissive to apoptosis. Future studies to determine the site of Nec-1 action and characterize the components of necroptosis pathway promise to provide important insight not only into a conserved and important mechanism for cell death, but also to develop effective treatments for a variety of human pathologies.
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University of Massachusetts
The paper by Degterev et al. is a tour de force characterization of necroptosis, a non-apoptotic form of programmed cell death that involves necrosis and autophagy. Existence of this caspase-independent pathway was hypothesized from observations that several different cultured cell types undergo a common necrotic death upon stimulation of death domain receptor proteins in the presence of caspase inhibitors. To investigate a necroptosis pathway, the authors performed a chemical screen of 15,000 small molecules for necroptosis inhibition. Of these, a heterocyclic compound, Necrostatin-1 (Nec-1), was shown to be a very potent and specific inhibitor of necroptosis.
Application of Nec-1 did not block apoptosis, autophagy, or oxidative stress-induced necrosis, and also did not disrupt normal cellular physiology. Significantly, necroptosis was shown to be a delayed component of ischemia-associated neuronal cell death induced by cerebral artery occlusion in mice. Administration of Nec-1 attenuated the extent of ischemia-induced neuronal death and did not disrupt general brain physiology. Furthermore, Nec-1 exhibited an extended time window of protection and was able to exert its effects 6 hours after the onset of injury. The simultaneous addition of Nec-1 and the zVAD.fmk caspase inhibitor yielded an additive protective effect, suggesting a potentially effective therapeutic combination.
Overall, necroptosis has a delayed latency compared to apoptosis, and the authors hypothesize that it may act as a redundant mechanism to provide cells with an ability to die when they find themselves in an environment non-permissive to apoptosis. Future studies to determine the site of Nec-1 action and characterize the components of necroptosis pathway promise to provide important insight not only into a conserved and important mechanism for cell death, but also to develop effective treatments for a variety of human pathologies.
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