Humans and mice lacking functional caspase-8 in T cells manifest a profound immunodeficiency syndrome due to defective T cell antigen receptor (TCR)-induced NF-B signaling and proliferation. It is unknown how caspase-8 is activated following T cell stimulation, and what is the caspase-8 substrate(s) that isActivation of caspases has traditionally been associated with oligomerization of death receptors and induction of cell death (1). It has been determined more recently that caspase activity is also required for the induction of proliferation by primary naïve human and murine T cells (2-4). Inhibition of caspase activity by the pan-caspase blocker, Z-VAD-fmk, 4 or the caspase-8-specific blocker, IETD-fmk, greatly reduced production of IL-2 and proliferation following TCR ligation (2, 3). It was subsequently shown that a non-functional mutation in the caspase-8 gene in humans (5, 6) or the deletion of caspase-8 in murine T cells (7) resulted in an immunodeficiency syndrome characterized by markedly decreased production of IL-2 and proliferative capacity of T cells. It remained uncertain from these studies how caspase activation was linked to T cell antigen receptor (TCR) ligation, what were the regulatory protein(s) and substrate(s) of caspase activity, and whether this required the presence of the death receptor Fas (CD95/APO1). Equally puzzling was how the activation of caspase-8 might be limited to avoid induction of apoptosis. We recently observed that following T cell activation, cleavage occurs of certain known caspase substrates, such as c-FLIP-Long form (c-FLIP L ) and RIP1, although another caspase-8 substrate associated with cell death, Bid, was not cleaved (4). This suggested that active caspase-8 may become sequestered in a specific site within T cells after activation.We considered the possibility of c-FLIP L as both an activator of caspase-8 and an early caspase-8 substrate after T cell activation. c-FLIP L is homologous to caspase-8 in containing two death effector domains, but bears a mutation in the caspase domain, which renders it enzymatically inactive (8). Following ligation of Fas, c-FLIP L is co-recruited with caspase-8 to the death-inducing signal complex (1,8). In addition, c-FLIP L is able to directly heterodimerize with and activate caspase-8 in its full-length form, independently of Fas (9 -11). c-FLIP L , furthermore, contains a caspase cleavage site at Asp 376 that yields processed p43 FLIP (12, 13). As such, c-FLIP L may be an early caspase-8 substrate during T cell activation. c-FLIP L also associates with RIP1 and TRAF2 to promote activation of NF-B (14). Mice overexpressing c-FLIP L in the T cell compartment manifest augmented IL-2, and enhanced proliferation (15, 16). Collectively, c-FLIP L may provide an important link in our understanding of how TCR stimulation activates caspase-8, what is the caspase-8 substrate(s), and how caspase activity may link to NF-B activation.