Caspase-8 is a caspase protein, which plays a role in the mitochondrial control of apoptosis. It is encoded by the CASP8 gene. Caspases are cysteine-aspartic proteases, a cysteine in the active site nucleophilically attacks and cleaves a target protein after an aspartic acid residue.

 

For this project we found the sequences of 6 Casp-8 representative proteins, carried out BLAST searches and performed multiple sequence alignments in order to determine conserved domains and structural similarities and differences.

 

Caspase-8 is an essential protein for survival, and incorrectly functioning caspases have been identified as having a role in many diseases. Caspase deficiency can cause tumour development, whereas over activation can cause excessive apoptosis. This is particularly evident in neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s.