Fluorescent in vivo Detectors for apoptosis

Caspase-3 Apoptosis Sensor Casper3-BG and Casper-GR

• Early detection of apoptosis in living cells
• Direct expression
• No exogenous chemical compounds or cofactors required

Caspase-3 (CPP32, apopain, YAMA), a member of asparate-specific cysteinyl proteases (or caspases) family, is a key mediator of apoptosis of mammalian cells [Kothakota et al., 1997]. Caspase-3 is activated during the early stages of apoptosis by self-proteolysis and/or cleavage by another protease. Active caspase-3 cleaves and activates caspases and many other cellular proteins, leading to apoptotic chromatin condensation and DNA fragmentation in all cell types examined [Porter and Janicke, 1999].

Casper3-BG and Casper3-GR are FRET based sensors that can be used for detection of caspase-3 activity in the living cells. The sensors consist of blue and green fluorescent proteins TagBFP and TagGFP2 or green and red fluorescent proteins TagGFP and TagRFP, respectively, connected by the linker containing caspase-3 cleavage sequence DEVD.

References
Kothakota S et al. (1997) Caspase-3-generated fragment of gelsolin: effector of morphological change in apoptosis. Science. 278 (5336):294-8. / pmid: 9323209
Porter AG, and Janicke RU. (1999) Emerging roles of caspase-3 in apoptosis. Cell Death Differ. 6 (2):99-104. / pmid: 10200555
Subach OM et al. (2008) Conversion of Red Fluorescent Protein into a Bright Blue Probe. Chem Biol. 15 (10):1116-24. / pmid: 18940671
Shcherbo D et al. (2009) Practical and reliable FRET/FLIM pair of fluorescent proteins. BMC Biotechnol. 9 :24. / pmid: 19321010

Description	Cat#	Size	Price
Casper3-BG Vector	FP970-EV	20 ug	600 €	DETAILS
Casper3-GR Vector	FP971-EV	20 ug	600 €	DETAILS