Description
Apoptosis plays a major role in normal organism development, tissue homeostasis, and removal of damaged cells. Disruption of this process has been implicated in a variety of diseases such as cancer (reviewed in 1). The Bcl-2 family of proteins is comprised of critical regulators of apoptosis that can be divided into two classes: those that inhibit apoptosis and those that promote cell death (reviewed in 2 and 3). MTCH2 is a member of the mitochondrial carrier protein family that catalyze the exchange of substrates across the inner mitochondrial membrane and is targeted by Bid, a pro-apoptotic Bcl-2 family member, in response to apoptotic signals (4-6), suggesting that MTCH2 may play a key role in the mitochondrial apoptosis pathway. The doublet observed in the SDS-PAGE is likely due to incomplete removal of the signal sequence