研究细胞凋亡的新模式生物——酵母

细胞凋亡是受到严格调控的细胞自杀过程,凋亡机制从酵母到动物细胞高度保守.酵母细胞的凋亡过程虽发现较晚,但研究进展迅速.多个证据表明,酵母确实能发生细胞凋亡且细胞凋亡机制具有较高的保守性.酵母已成功用于发现新的细胞凋亡因子.近来,酵母还用作亨丁顿舞蹈症、帕金森氏病等凋亡相关疾病的细胞模型,为治愈这些疾病提供思路和指导·综述了酵母作为凋亡研究模式生物的可行性和独特的优势,其应用前景、存在的瓶颈问题及可能的解决方案.利用酵母为模式生物研究细胞凋亡和疾病发生,将大大加快发现新凋亡因子的过程,同时酵母作为凋亡相关疾病模式生物具有广阔的发展空间.

A New Model for Apoptosis Research: Yeast

Apoptosis is an organized suicide program which is evolutionally conserved from yeast to mammals. Research on yeast apoptosis has made rapid progress, though it remained unrecognized until recent years. Initial observations show that yeast can be induced to undergo apoptosis and a number of conserved pro- and antiapoptotic proteins have been identified in Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Yeast has been validated as a model organism to investigate mechanisms of apoptosis. Recently, yeast has also been used as a model to study apoptosis-related disease, such as Huntington's disease and Parkinson's disease. The feasibility, the advantages and the perspectives of yeast model for apoptosis research are reviewed.