About Caspase 1
This gene encodes a protein which is a member of the cysteine-aspartic acid protease (caspase) family. Sequential activation of caspases plays a central role in the execution-phase of cell apoptosis. Caspases exist as inactive proenzymes which undergo proteolytic processing at conserved aspartic residues to produce 2 subunits, large and small, that dimerize to form the active enzyme. This gene was identified by its ability to proteolytically cleave and activate the inactive precursor of interleukin-1, a cytokine involved in the processes such as inflammation, septic shock, and wound healing. This gene has been shown to induce cell apoptosis and may function in various developmental stages. Studies of a similar gene in mouse suggest a role in the pathogenesis of Huntington disease. Alternative splicing results in transcript variants encoding distinct isoforms. [provided by RefSeq, Mar 2012]

About PE
Phycoerythrin (PE, R-PE) is a red-emitting fluorescent protein-chromophore complex that can be excited the 488-nm blue, 532-nm green, or 561-nm yellow-green laser with increasing efficiency and captured with a 586/14 nm bandpass filter. PE has an excitation peak at 565 nm and an emission peak at 578 nm. PE is 240kD in size and has an extinction coefficient of ~2x10^6 which makes it one of the brightest fluorophores available and a potent donor upon which to build tandem fluorophores with longer Stoke's Shifts.