Apoptosis is related to many diseases and induced by a family of cell death receptors and their ligands. Cell death signals are transduced by death domain (DD) death effector domain (DED), and caspase recruitment domain (CARD) containing molecules. Several molecules including caspases and adaptor FADD contain DEDs. A novel protein that interacts with DED of caspase-8 and 10, and FADD was identified recently and designated DEDAF for DED associated factor. DEDAF is identical to the transcriptional repressor RYBP. DEDAF/RYBP is expressed in multiple tissues and cell lines. DEDAF interacts with FADD and augments the formation of CD95/FADD/capase-8 complexes at the cell membrane, and interacts with DED-containing DNA biding protein (DEDD) in the nucleus indicating it is involved in the regulation of both cytoplasmic and nuclear events of apoptosis.
