Molecular mechanisms of cell death: recommendations of the Nomenclature Committee on Cell Death 2018.

Over the past decade, the Nomenclature Committee on Cell Death (NCCD) has formulated guidelines for the definition and interpretation of cell death from morphological, biochemical, and functional perspectives. Since the field continues to expand and novel mechanisms that orchestrate multiple cell death pathways are unveiled, we propose an updated classification of cell death subroutines focusing on mechanistic and essential (as opposed to correlative and dispensable) aspects of the process. As we provide molecularly oriented definitions of terms including intrinsic apoptosis, extrinsic apoptosis, mitochondrial permeability transition (MPT)-driven necrosis, necroptosis, ferroptosis, pyroptosis, parthanatos, entotic cell death, NETotic cell death, lysosome-dependent cell death, autophagy-dependent cell death, immunogenic cell death, cellular senescence, and mitotic catastrophe, we discuss the utility of neologisms that refer to highly specialized instances of these processes. The mission of the NCCD is to provide a widely accepted nomenclature on cell death in support of the continued development of the field

Suppression of Interleukin-33 Bioactivity through Proteolysis by Apoptotic Caspases

Interleukin-33 (IL-33) is amember of the IL-1 family and is involved in polarization of T cells toward a T helper 2 (Th2) cell phenotype. IL-33 is thought to be activated via caspase-1-dependent proteolysis, similar to the proinflammatory cytokines IL-1b and IL-18, but this remains unproven. Here we showed that IL-33 was processed by caspases activated during apoptosis (caspase-3 and -7) but was not a physiological substrate for caspases associated with inflammation (caspase-1, -4, and -5). Furthermore, caspase-dependent processing of IL-33 was not required for ST2 receptor binding or ST2-dependent activation of the NF-kB transcription factor. Indeed, caspase-dependent proteolysis of IL-33 dramatically attenuated IL- 33 bioactivity in vitro and in vivo. These data suggest that IL-33 does not require proteolysis for activation, but rather, that IL-33 bioactivity is diminished through caspase-dependentproteolysis within apoptotic cells. Thus, caspase-mediated proteolysis acts as a switch to dampen the proinflammatory properties of IL-33

Bicaudal is a conserved substrate for Drosophila and mammalian caspases and is essential for cell survival

Members of the caspase family of cysteine proteases coordinate cell death through restricted proteolysis of diverse protein substrates and play a conserved role in apoptosis from nematodes to man. However, while numerous substrates for the mammalian cell death-associated caspases have now been described, few caspase substrates have been identified in other organisms. Here, we have utilized a proteomics-based approach to identify proteins that are cleaved by caspases during apoptosis in Drosophila D-Mel2 cells, a subline of the Schneider S2 cell line. This approach identified multiple novel substrates for the fly caspases and revealed that bicaudal/betaNAC is a conserved substrate for Drosophila and mammalian caspases. RNAi-mediated silencing of bicaudal expression in Drosophila D-Mel2 cells resulted in a block to proliferation, followed by spontaneous apoptosis. Similarly, silencing of expression of the mammalian bicaudal homologue, betaNAC, in HeLa, HEK293T, MCF-7 and MRC5 cells also resulted in spontaneous apoptosis. These data suggest that bicaudal/betaNAC is essential for cell survival and is a conserved target of caspases from flies to man