Insect Biochemistry Insect Biochemistry and Molecular Bio f d g

d fo Programmed cell death plays an important role in the viruses thanks to their capacity to functionally replace the baculoviral p35 protein, another viral apoptosis inhibitor (Crook et al., 1993; Birnbaum et al., 1994). Baculovirus Specifically, IAPs inhibit the caspases that promote cell residues which forms a stable fold that can chelate zinc (Hinds et al., 1999; Sun et al., 1999). BIR motifs are essential for the anti-apoptotic function of IAPs (Vucic ARTICLE IN PRESSet al., 1998), and in the fruitfly Drosophila melanogaster they can bind apoptotic inducers, like Grim, Reaper and Hid proteins (Vucic et al., 1997; Vucic et al., 1998; 0965-1748/ $- see front matter r 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.ibmb.2007.07.013 Corresponding author