Ri Yao Yang

TL;DR: Galectin-3 is a regulator of cell growth and apoptosis and it may function through a cell death inhibition pathway that involves Bcl-2, a well-characterized suppressor of apoptosis.

TL;DR: Current research indicates that galectins play important roles in diverse physiological and pathological processes, including immune and inflammatory responses, tumour development and progression, neural degeneration, atherosclerosis, diabetes, and wound repair, and may be a therapeutic target or employed as therapeutic agents for inflammatory diseases, cancers and several other diseases.

TL;DR: It was found that peritoneal macrophages from gal3(-/-) mice were more prone to undergo apoptosis than those from Gal3(+/+) mice when treated with apoptotic stimuli, suggesting that expression of galectin-3 in inflammatory cells may lead to longer cell survival, thus prolonging inflammation.

TL;DR: Transfectants of HeLa and DLD-1 cells ectopically expressing galectin-7 were found to be more susceptible to apoptosis than control transfectants and this protein is a pro-apoptotic protein that functions intracellularly upstream of JNK activation and cytochrome c release.

TL;DR: Fourteen members of the galectin family, proteins with conserved carbohydrate-recognition domains that bind β-galactoside, have been cloned and more are expected to be discovered in the near future, with the only member known so far to inhibit apoptosis.