The ability of multicellular organisms to maintain cellular homeostasis is critically dependent on a balance between cell survival and cell death (apoptosis). The responsiveness of individual cells to death signals varies greatly depending on the presence of continuous survival cues from the extracellular environment. The perturbation of normal cell survival mechanisms, leading to an increase in cell survival or cell death plays an important role in the development of a number of disease states, including cancer. BAD (BCL2 Associated Death Promoter) is a pro-apoptotic critical regulatory component of the intrinsic cell death machinery that exerts its death-promoting effect upon heterodimerization with the antiapoptotic proteins of the BCL2 family defined by conserved regions of identity called BH (BCL2 homology) domains (Ref.1).
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