Fas/APO-1 and p55 tumor necrosis factor (TNF) receptor (p55-R) activate cellular mechanisms that result in cell death. Upon activation of these receptors, Fas/APO-1 binds a protein called MORT1 (or FADD) and p55-R binds a protein called TRADD. MORT1 and TRADD can also bind to each other.Boldin et ql. cloned a novel protein, MACH, that binds to MORT1. This protein exists in multiple isoforms, some of which contain a region that has proteolytic activity and shows marked sequence homology to proteases of the ICE/CED-3 family. Cellular expression of the proteolytic MACH isoforms results in cell death. Expression of MACH isoforms that contain an incomplete ICE/CED-3 region provides effective protection against the cytotoxicity induced by Fas/APO-1 or p55-R triggering. These findings suggest that MACH is the most upstream enzymatic component in the Fas/APO-1- and p55-R-induced cell death signaling cascades (Boldin et al., 1996)

A second group identified CAP3 and CAP4 as components of the CD95 (Fas/APO-1) death-inducing signaling complex by use nano-electrospray tandem mass spectrometry, a recently developed technique to sequence femtomole quantities of polyacrylamide gel-separated proteins. Interestingly, CAP4 encodes a novel 55 kDa protein, designated FLICE, which has homology to both FADD and the ICE/CED- 3 family of cysteine proteases. FLICE binds to the death effector domain of FADD and upon overexpression induces apoptosis that is blocked by the ICE family inhibitors, CrmA and z-VAD-fmk. CAP3 was identified as the FLICE prodomain which likely remains bound to the receptor after proteolytic activation. Taken together, the finding of MACH/Flice links a death receptor physically to the proapoptotic proteases of the ICE/CED-3 family (Muzio et al., 1996)