CASP7（caspase 7），癌症关联基因，基因ID：840，这个基因编码半胱氨酸天冬氨酸蛋白酶（caspase）家族的一个成员。caspases的顺序激活在细胞凋亡的执行阶段起着重要作用。半胱天冬酶作为非活性的酶原存在，在保守的天冬氨酸残基上进行蛋白水解处理，产生两个大的和小的亚基，二聚以形成活性酶。编码蛋白的前体被caspase 3和caspase 10切割，在细胞死亡刺激下被激活并诱导凋亡。另外，已经观察到该基因编码多个亚型的剪接转录变体。[由RefSeq提供，2012年5月]This gene encodes a member of the cysteine-aspartic acid protease (caspase) family. Sequential activation of caspases plays a central role in the execution-phase of cell apoptosis. Caspases exist as inactive proenzymes which undergo proteolytic processing at conserved aspartic residues to produce two subunits， large and small， that dimerize to form the active enzyme. The precursor of the encoded protein is cleaved by caspase 3 and 10， is activated upon cell death stimuli and induces apoptosis. Alternatively spliced transcript variants encoding multiple isoforms have been observed for this gene. [provided by RefSeq， May 2012]。