The short splice form of Casper/c-FLIP is a major cellular inhibitor of TRAIL-induced apoptosis.

TRAIL (tumor necrosis factor-related apoptosis-inducing ligand) is a member of the tumor necrosis factor family that selectively induces apoptosis of cancer cells. However, some cancer cells or subpopulations within cancer cell lines are resistant to TRAIL-induced apoptosis. We developed a retroviral cDNA library-based functional cloning approach to unambiguously identify putative inhibitory genes of TRAIL-induced apoptosis. This effort identified the short splice form of Casper/c-FLIP, Casper-S/c-FLIPs, as a major cellular protein that confers resistance to TRAIL-induced apoptosis. Furthermore, we found that Casper deficient embryonic fibroblasts (EFs) were highly sensitive while their wild-type counterparts were completely resistant to TRAIL-induced apoptosis. Retroviral-mediated transduction of Casper-S/c-FLIPs into Casper(-/-) EFs restored resistance to TRAIL. These data suggest that Casper-S/c-FLIPs is a major cellular inhibitor of TRAIL-induced apoptosis.