Figure 4.

The TRAIL death receptor pathway and its regulation by bioactive peptides. TRAIL acts on two kinds of receptors in human body: TRAIL R1 and R2, which are also known as DR4 and DR5. Other receptors, TRAIL R3 and R4, which are known as DcR1 and DcR2, are decoy receptors for OPG. PLVAP peptides may cause DR conformational changes and signaling pathway activation, which triggers the TRAIL apoptosis signal and leads to apoptosis. Furthermore, 2-TeCD could moderately upregulate the expression of DR protein in the TRAIL pathway and, thus, inhibit metabolism in cancer cells.