Journal
JOURNAL OF LEUKOCYTE BIOLOGY
Volume 84, Issue 5, Pages 1238-1247Publisher
WILEY
DOI: 10.1189/jlb.0208140
Keywords
granzyme; apoptosis
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Funding
- Dutch Cancer Society and the Association for International Cancer Research
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Serine protease inhibitors (serpins) are a family of proteins that are important in the regulation of several biological processes. This mainly involves the inhibition of serine proteases, although some serpins inhibit a different class of proteases or even function without inhibitory activity. In contrast to other protease inhibitor families, serpins inhibit their target proteases by a specific mechanism, which depends on a change in conformation. This review primarily focuses on one subgroup of serpins-ovalbumin (ov)-serpins. Different than most members of the family, this group of serpins lacks secretion signal sequences and therefore, mainly functions intracellularly. In addition to expression in most normal tissues, ov-serpins can be found in multiple different cells of the immune system. Interestingly, expression of ov-serpins in these cells is tightly regulated, indicating a role for these serpins in the regulation of immune responses. The role of serpins in the immune response will be the topic of this review. J. Leukoc. Biol. 84: 1238-1247; 2008.
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