Imgenex Corp. develops and commercializes novel reagents for the scientific study of human biology and disease and for the production of new diagnostic assays and potential therapies of such diseases. These novel reagents include antibodies, gene and protein expression systems, and arrays of various cells and tissues for use in studies of functional genomics. Areas of biological interest at IMGENEX include cancer, apoptosis (programmed cell death), molecular signaling pathways, cellular aging, and metabolic and infectious diseases.

Apoptosis is regulated by death domain (DD) and/or caspase recruitment domain (CARD) containing molecules and a caspase family of proteases. CARD domain containing cell death regulators include RAIDD, Apaf-1, caspase-9, and caspase-2. A novel CARD domain containing protein was recently identified and designated ARC for apoptosis repressor with CARD (1). ARC interacts with caspase-2 and -8 and inhibits enzymatic activity of caspase-8. ARC suppresses apoptosis induced by cell death adapters FADD and TRADD and by cell death receptors Fas, TNFR-1 and DR3. The messenger RNA of ARC is primarily expressed in skeletal muscle and cardiac tissue (1).