Apoptosis is related to many diseases including cancer. Cell death signals are transduced by death domain (DD) and caspase recruitment domain (CARD) containing molecules and a caspase family of proteases. CARD containing cell death regulators include ARC, RAIDD, Apaf-1, caspase-9, and caspase-2. A novel CARD containing protein was recently identified by several groups and designated Bcl10, CIPER, mE10, CARMEN, CLAP. Bcl10 is a cellular homolog of the equine herpesvirus-2 E-10 gene. Overexpression of Bcl10 induces JNK, p38, and NF-κB activation. Bcl10 interacts with caspase-9 and enhances pro-caspase-9 processing and induces apoptosis through caspase-9 activation. Bcl10 exhibits a variety of mutations in MALT lymphomas and in B and T cell lineage lymphomas indicating that it may be commonly involved in the pathogenesis of human malignancy. Bcl10 is expressed in many human and murine tissues and cell lines.
