“…Caspases (cysteine proteases), ceramides (cell membrane lipids), and calpains (Ca 2+dependent proteases) are known to play an important role in Cd 2+ -induced apoptosis in rat kidney proximal tubule cells and to be related directly to Cd 2+ -induced nephrotoxicity in vivo [191]. Cd 2+ induced apoptosis involving the activation of caspase-9, caspase-3 and mitogen-activated protein kinases (ERK, JNK, p53, and p38) as well as DNA fragmentation in rat C6 glioma cells, HEK293 cells, Vero cells, rat ascites hepatoma AS-30D cells, human lung cancer A549 cells, hamster ovary CHO-9 cells, PC12 cells, rat and mouse cochlea HEI-OC1 cells, rat primary astrocytes, rat primary cerebral cortical neurons, U-937 human promonocytic cells, mouse skin fibroblasts, NIH 3T3 cells, yeast cells, rat kidney proximal tubule cells, brain newborn rat oligodendrocytes, rat hepatocytes, mouse skin epidermal JB6 Cl41 cells, AS-30D ascites hepatoma cells, and human hepatocellular carcinoma HepG2 cells [146,158,159,161,162,172,[185][186][187]189,190,[192][193][194][195][196][197][198][199][200][201][202][203][204][205][206][207]. This Cd 2+ -induced apoptosis was accompanied by oxidative stress and mitochondrial injury, which manifested as a cell viability reduction, CI-CIII dysfunction, ATP depletion, ∆Ψ mito decline, matrix Ca 2+ load, a reduced glutathione decrease, cytochrome c release, an ROS and H 2 O 2 production increase, and lipid peroxidation as well as mitochondrial damage and swelling.…”