|
|
 |
|
Fas Ligand Scientific Background
Fas Ligand (FasL) has been shown to mediate both apoptotic and inflammatory reactions. It is already known that Fas and FasL play an important role in three types of physiologic apoptosis:
(1) Peripheral deletion of activated mature T cells at the end of an immune response,
(2) Killing of targets such as various infected cells or cancer cells by cytotoxic T cells and by natural killer cells, and
(3) Killing of inflammatory cells at "immune-privileged" sites such as the eye, testis, lung and on several types of tumor cells. It can be induced in organs such as liver and small intestine. When FasL binds to Fas, it oligomerizes the trimeric receptor that results in the recruitment of the death-inducing signal complex.
Considerable confusion exists in the literature as to the relative importance of the membrane and soluble form of FasL on the proinflammatory effects of this molecule.
- Early reports indicated that the natural cleavage product of human soluble FasL (sFasL) did have cytotoxic activity (Tanaka et al EMBO J.14:1129,1995)
- On the other hand It has been shown by other researchers that the sFasL is less cytotoxic than membrane-bound FasL (Schneider et al JEM 187:1205, 1998)
- The role of sFasL in an in vivo system was reexamined comparing the
functional effects of the various FasL products. The study data clearly
demonstrated that the sFasL product (amino acids 106-279) is
proapoptotic and proinflammatory. In contrast to the above construct, the
natural cleavage product (amino acids 127-279) failed to induce even the
slightest indication of an inflammatory response (Hohlbaum et al JEM 7:1209,2000).
For detailed information on SBH Sciences Soluble Fas Ligand click here.
|
|
