The Mysteries around the BCL-2 Family Member BOK
Institute for Genetics and Cologne Excellence Cluster on Cellular Stress Responses in Aging-Associated Diseases (CECAD), University of Cologne, Joseph-Stelzmann-Straße 26, 50931 Cologne, Germany
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Biomolecules 2020, 10(12), 1638; https://doi.org/10.3390/biom10121638
Received: 10 November 2020
/
Revised: 30 November 2020
/
Accepted: 2 December 2020
/
Published: 4 December 2020
(This article belongs to the Special Issue BCL-2 Family in Health and Diseases)
BOK is an evolutionarily conserved BCL-2 family member that resembles the apoptotic effectors BAK and BAX in sequence and structure. Based on these similarities, BOK has traditionally been classified as a BAX-like pro-apoptotic protein. However, the mechanism of action and cellular functions of BOK remains controversial. While some studies propose that BOK could replace BAK and BAX to elicit apoptosis, others attribute to this protein an indirect way of apoptosis regulation. Adding to the debate, BOK has been associated with a plethora of non-apoptotic functions that makes this protein unpredictable when dictating cell fate. Here, we compile the current knowledge and open questions about this paradoxical protein with a special focus on its structural features as the key aspect to understand BOK biological functions.
View Full-Text
Keywords:
BOK; MOMP; BCL-2 family; apoptosis
▼
Show Figures
Figure 1
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited
MDPI and ACS Style
Shalaby, R.; Flores-Romero, H.; García-Sáez, A.J. The Mysteries around the BCL-2 Family Member BOK. Biomolecules 2020, 10, 1638. https://doi.org/10.3390/biom10121638
AMA Style
Shalaby R, Flores-Romero H, García-Sáez AJ. The Mysteries around the BCL-2 Family Member BOK. Biomolecules. 2020; 10(12):1638. https://doi.org/10.3390/biom10121638
Chicago/Turabian StyleShalaby, Raed, Hector Flores-Romero, and Ana J. García-Sáez. 2020. "The Mysteries around the BCL-2 Family Member BOK" Biomolecules 10, no. 12: 1638. https://doi.org/10.3390/biom10121638
Find Other Styles
Note that from the first issue of 2016, MDPI journals use article numbers instead of page numbers. See further details here.
