Abstract
The present study was designed to investigate the hypothesis that interleukin-4 (IL-4) can induce apoptosis of human endothelial cells and to study regulatory pathways of this process. Indeed, DNA ladder assay and flow cytometry study showed that IL-4 can induce apoptosis of endothelial cells in a time- and dose-dependent manner. In addition, IL-4 markedly increased activity of caspase-3, and inhibition of this enzyme suppressed IL-4-induced apoptosis in a dose-dependent manner. These results provide the first evidence that IL-4 can induce apoptosis of human endothelial cells. In addition, the data indicate that the caspase-3-dependent pathway is critically involved in this process.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 122-126 |
Number of pages | 5 |
Journal | FEBS Letters |
Volume | 485 |
Issue number | 2-3 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Nov 24 2000 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:This work was supported in part by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation and by research grants from the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, American Heart Association, and National Institutes of Health.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2000 Federation of European Biochemical Societies.
Keywords
- Apoptosis
- Atherosclerosis
- Caspase-3
- Human endothelial cell
- Interleukin-4
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Biophysics
- Structural Biology
- Biochemistry
- Molecular Biology
- Genetics
- Cell Biology