Investigators at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital have discovered a dance of proteins that protects certain cells from undergoing apoptosis, also known as programmed cell death. Understanding the fine points of apoptosis is important to researchers seeking ways to control this process.

Argonaute 2 (Ago2) is unique among its family: It is the only one of the four mammalian Argonaute proteins that exhibits endonuclease “slicer” activity (facilitation of miRNA-guided cleavage of target mRNA).