Dealing the CARDs between life and death.

Exciting evidence presented at a recent meeting shows that proteins containing CARD, or related DD or DED, motifs are centrally involved in assembling protein complexes that drive activation of either IkappaB kinase or caspases by facilitating intermolecular juxtapositioning. Thus, CARD-family proteins occupy crucial positions in divergent stress-associated signalling pathways that culminate in inflammatory responses or apoptosis.