caspase-12; CASP-12 (CASP12)

Function

• has no protease activity
• may reduce cytokine release in response to bacterial lipopolysaccharide during infections
• reduces activation of NF-kappa-B in response to TNF

Structure

• belongs to the peptidase C14 family
• contains 1 CARD domain

Alternative splicing

named isoforms=3

Expression

• detected in heart, kidney, liver, lung, pancreas, small intestine, spleen, stomach, thymus & testis

Pathology

• may also contribute to A4 peptide neurotoxicity

Polymorphism

• most frequent variant has a stop codon instead of Arg-125, giving rise to a truncated protein (Csp12-S)
• the variant Arg-125 (Csp12-L) is rare, except in some populations from sub-Saharan Africa
• Csp12-L may increase the susceptibility to severe sepsis, & may also increase the mortality rate in sepsis patients

More general terms

• caspase

Database

• OMIM: https://mirror.omim.org/entry/608633
• Kegg: http://www.genome.jp/dbget-bin/www_bget?
• UniProt: http://www.uniprot.org/uniprot/Q6UXS9.html