Dependence receptors: Mechanisms of an announced death

Abstract

Dependence receptors form a family of functionally related receptors which are all able to induce two completely opposite intracellular signals depending on the availability of their ligand. Indeed, in its presence, they mediate a positive, classical signal transduction of survival, differentiation or migration but without it, they trigger a negative signal, which leads to cell death. The molecular mechanisms involved in triggering cell death in the absence of ligand are starting to be unraveled: dependence receptors are recruited at well-defined domains at the plasma membrane, they trigger cell death through a monomeric form, they are cleaved by caspases and they recruit a caspase activating complex. © 2010 Landes Bioscience.