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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2013 May 7.
Published in final edited form as: Mol Pharm. 2012 Mar 28;9(5):1449–1458. doi: 10.1021/mp3000259

Figure 1.

Figure 1

The mitochondrial apoptotic pathway of p53. When p53 is targeted to the mitochondria, it interacts with anti-apoptotic Bcl-XL, enables Bax and Bak oligomerization, and activates the intrinsic apoptotic pathway. The apoptosome (cytochrome c, APAF-1 and caspase-9) is triggered, leading to apoptosis via activation of caspases-3, -6, and -7. The left side of the diagram indicates the mitochondrial signals (MTSs) used and the different subsections of the mitochondria targeted, including the outer membrane (“XL-MTS” from Bcl-XL; “TOM-MTS” from TOM20), the inner membrane (“CCO-MTS” from cytochrome c oxidase), and the matrix (“OTC-MTS” from ornithine transcarbamylase).