FADD and cervical carcinoma: To investigate the underlying mechanism involved in Zey-induced apoptosis in cervical carcinoma cells, the receptor mediated death pathway, also known as the extrinsic caspase pathway, was initially explored, as shown in Fig. 5A, Zey predominantly decreased expression of BID, pro-caspase-8 and markedly increased levels of FAS, FADD and cleaved caspase 8, indicating the involvement of extrinsic caspase pathway in Zey induced apoptosis.