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Allosteric Regulation Of Caspase-6 Proteolytic Activity, Elih M. Velazquez-Delgado

Open Access Dissertations

Caspases are cysteine proteases best known for their controlling roles in apoptosis and inflammation. Caspase-6 has recently been shown to play a key role in the cleavage of neurodegenerative substrates that causes Huntington and Alzheimer's Disease, heightening interest in caspase-6 and making it a drug target. All thirteen human caspases have related specificities for binding and cleaving substrate, so achieving caspase-specific regulation at the active site has been extremely challenging if not impossible. We have determined the structures of four unliganded forms of caspase-6, which attain a novel helical structure not observed in any other caspases. In this conformation, rotation …