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English: The intrinsic (Bcl-2 inhibitable or mitochondrial) pathway of apoptosis functions in response to various types of intracellular stress including growth factor withdrawal, DNA damage, unfolding stresses in the endoplasmic reticulum and death receptor stimulation. Following the reception of stress signals, proapoptotic BCL-2 family proteins are activated and subsequently interact with and inactivate antiapoptotic BCL-2 proteins. This interaction leads to the destabilization of the mitochondrial membrane and release of apoptotic factors. These factors induce the caspase proteolytic cascade, chromatin condensation, and DNA fragmentation, ultimately leading to cell death. The key players in the Intrinsic pathway are the Bcl-2 family of proteins that are critical death regulators residing immediately upstream of mitochondria. The Bcl-2 family consists of both anti- and proapoptotic members that possess conserved alpha-helices with sequence conservation clustered in BCL-2 Homology (BH) domains. Proapoptotic members are organized as follows:

1. "Multidomain" BAX family proteins such as BAX, BAK etc. that display sequence conservation in their BH1-3 regions. These proteins act downstream in mitochondrial disruption.

2. "BH3-only" proteins such as BID,BAD, NOXA, PUMA,BIM, and BMF have only the short BH3 motif. These act upstream in the pathway, detecting developmental death cues or intracellular damage. Anti-apoptotic members like Bcl-2, Bcl-XL and their relatives exhibit homology in all segments BH1-4. One of the critical functions of BCL-2/BCL-XL proteins is to maintain the integrity of the mitochondrial outer membrane.