Role of the adaptor protein CASP

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Movement of proteins and organelles within a cell is a well-regulated process involving many molecular interactions. We discovered several proteins that are involved in this movement process. We recently found a novel interaction between two proteins in lymphocytes. These proteins are involved in moving vesicles to the area of the lymphocyte that is in contact with tumour cells. We will attempt to isolate other proteins that bind these proteins and determine how they are involved in movement of vesicles in lymphocytes. One protein is also cleaved when the cells potentially commit suicide. We would like to determine if this mechanism is used to kill and remove infected lymphocytes. Another structurally related protein to our protein was also found in nerve cells. Recently we have found it to be also expressed in lymphocytes. This protein may have different lengths. We will determine if these similar proteins can substitute for each other. The roles of these proteins in moving vesicles to the immune synapse and also their role in cell motility will be explored. Our long term goals are to determine how these proteins participate in coordinating vesicular traffic based upon our novel model.