[
Nature,
1997]
Genetic analyses of the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans have identified three core components of the cell-death apparatus. CED-3 and CED-4 promote, whereas CED-9 inhibits cell death. Recent studies indicate that CED-4 might interact independently with CED-3 and CED-9, forming the crux of a multicomponent death complex. But except for its role as an adaptor molecule, little is known about CED-4 function. A clue came with the observation that mutation of the phosphate-binding loop (P-loop) of CED-4 disrupts its ability to induce chromatin condensation in yeast. Further, a P-loop mutant of CED-4 (CED-4K165R) fails to process CED-3 in vivo, both in insect and mammalian cells (unpublished). We now confirm that CED-4 induces CED-3 activation and subsequent apoptosis, and that the process requires binding of ATP.
[
Science,
1999]
Elizabeth Pennisi, in her excellent commentary "Worming secrets from the C. elegans" (News Focus, 11 Dec 1998, p.1972), states that "The first person to sense that the worm might take on such a prominent role in biology was molecular biologist Sydney Brenner." I am sure that Brenner would wish to acknowledge the role that Ellsworth C. Dougherty played in this matter. Dougherty originally described in 1949, "[a] new species of the free-living nematode genus Rhabditis of interest in comparative physiology and genetics".