Something new under the sun: caspases promote cell survival under moderate heat stress.

Since the discovery of caspases in 1993 (Yuan et al, 1993), they have largely been regarded as essential Cys proteases in apoptosis. However, more recently, it has become evident that caspases also have non-apoptotic functions in the so-called caspase-dependent non-lethal processes (CDPs) including cell proliferation and cell differentiation (Aram et al, 2017). While most of the non-apoptotic functions were characterized under normal developmental conditions, a new study by Galasso et al took this examination a step further-to the analysis of moderate stress conditions. The authors now report that caspases have a non-apoptotic prosurvival function in Drosophila ovarian somatic cells exposed to moderate heat stress by controlling Hedgehog signaling and autophagy (Galasso et al, 2023).