The minimal, reusable proteolytic-activation motif: an active protease cleaves an inactive zymogen at a specific site, converting it into the next active protease, which in turn activates the following zymogen (and acts on effector substrates). Iterating this step builds the self-amplifying proteolytic cascades of the caspase apoptosis pathway, the complement system, and the coagulation cascade. The motif is gene-free and taxon-neutral: it fixes only the protease and zymogen-substrate roles and the cleavage-activates-the-next topology. Concrete cascades embed it through `conforms_to`, substituting their own protease family and zymogen substrates. Grounded in GO:0031638 (zymogen activation).
Reusable conformance target. A node declares `conforms_to: [{template: protease_activation_cascade}]` when an active protease proteolytically activates a downstream zymogen. The protease class (serine, cysteine/caspase, metallo-) is realization-specific.
All recommended fields populated.
✗ none found
No MODULE:protease_activation_cascade deep-research report alongside the module YAML.
3 leaf node(s) with no concrete protein grounding:
✓ every declared conforms_to bundle matches its template motif.
No concrete UniProt-grounded genes in this module.
An already-active protease cleaves the downstream zymogen at its activation site.
Cleaves and activates the downstream zymogen.
The inactive zymogen is cleaved into its catalytically active form.
The protease precursor converted to active protease.
The newly activated protease acts on its effector substrates and/or activates the next zymogen, propagating the cascade.
Propagates the cascade and cleaves effector substrates.