Apoptosis occurs during normal cellular development and involves dramatic changes in cellular structure. Disruption of apoptosis may contribute to cancer as well as other autoimmune diseases. Caspase family of cysteine proteases has been shown to play a key role in apoptosis. Caspase-4 is also known as Ich-2, TX, and ICErel-II and can proteolytically processed by granzyme B. Over expression of caspase-4 induces apoptosis in Rat-1 and HeLa cells, which can be inhibited by CrmA and Bcl-2.
