Figure 3.

SCF and its ingredients attenuate apoptosis in NDs. Apoptosis are initiated by various external factors through the signal transduction of apoptosis signal with membrane receptors [83,84]. The apoptosis-inducing complex on the cell membrane includes a Fas-assiociated protein with death domain protein (FADD), of which N-terminal (DED) homophilic crosslinks with the inactive caspase-8. With the activating of caspase-8, the following cascade reactions are promoted [85,86,87]. Bax migrates from the cytosol to the mitochondria in apoptosis [88,89]. Mitochondrial Bcl-2 exerts an anti-apoptotic effect by preventing the release of mitochondrial cytochrome c (Cyt c), and reducing the activity of caspase [90,91,92]. Cyt c released into the cytoplasm binds to apoptosis-related factor 1 (Apaf-1) in the presence of dATP, and forms apoptotic bodies with caspase-9. With the activating of caspase-9, caspase-3 is subsequently activated to induce apoptosis [93,94,95]. The protective effect of SCF and its active ingredients are shown in orange.