HTRA2 and brain ischemia: Higher level of Omi/HtrA2 distinctly promotes neuronal apoptosis in cerebral ischemia/reperfusion (Althaus et al. 2007), hippocampal neurons injury (Rami et al. 2010), and neurodegenerative diseases (Li et al. 2010), etc. Pre-treatment with UCF-101, a selective inhibitor of Omi/HtrA2 protease activity significantly reduces neuronal cell apoptosis and attenuates sepsis-induced cognitive dysfunction (Cilenti et al. 2003; Hu et al. 2013), protects against cerebral ischemia/reperfusion injury (Su et al. 2009), and traumatic spinal cord injury-induced locomotor impairments (Reigada et al. 2015).