該基因編碼半胱氨酸天冬氨酸蛋白酶（caspase）家族的一個成員。半胱天冬酶的連續激活在細胞凋亡的執行階段起著中心作用。半胱天冬酶是由前體蛋白、大蛋白酶亞單位和小蛋白酶亞單位組成的非活性原酶。半胱天冬酶的激活需要在保守的內部天冬氨酸殘基處進行蛋白水解處理，以產生一種由大小亞單位組成的異二聚體酶。這種蛋白參與Fas和各種凋亡刺激誘導的程序性細胞死亡。該蛋白的N端FADD樣死亡效應域表明，它可能與FAS相互作用蛋白FADD相互作用。這種蛋白在亨廷頓病患者大腦受影響區域的不溶性部分檢測到，但在正常對照組中沒有檢測到，這與神經退行性疾病的作用有關。許多選擇性剪接轉錄變異體編碼不同的亞型已經被描述，雖然不是所有變異體都已經確定了它們的全長序列。
This gene encodes 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 composed of a prodomain, a large protease subunit, and a small protease subunit. Activation of caspases requires proteolytic processing at conserved internal aspartic residues to generate a heterodimeric enzyme consisting of the large and small subunits. This protein is involved in the programmed cell death induced by Fas and various apoptotic stimuli. The N-terminal FADD-like death effector domain of this protein suggests that it may interact with Fas-interacting protein FADD. This protein was detected in the insoluble fraction of the affected brain region from Huntington disease patients but not in those from normal controls, which implicated the role in neurodegenerative diseases. Many alternatively spliced transcript variants encoding different isoforms have been described, although not all variants have had their full-length sequences determined.