Apoptosis
is a process, in which cells activate an intrinsic suicide mechanism that
destroys themselves. The proteases that mediate this execution are called
caspases (cysteinyl-aspartic acid proteases). Apoptosis has gained central
importance in the study of many biological processes, including neoplasia,
neurodegenerative diseases, and development. Cleaved caspase-3 detects
endogenous levels of the large fragment (17/19 kDa) of activated caspase-3
resulting from cleavage adjacent to (Asp175). Activation of caspase-3
requires proteolytic processing of its inactive zymogen into actived p17 and p12
subunits. Cleavage of caspase-3 requires aspartic acid at the P1 position. This
antibody does not cross-react with other cleaved
caspases.