Serine protease HTRA2, mitochondrial is an enzyme that in humans is encoded by the HTRA2 gene.

This gene encodes a serine protease. The protein has been localized in the endoplasmic reticulum and interacts with an alternatively spliced form of mitogen-activated protein kinase 14. The protein has also been localized to the mitochondria with release to the cytosol following apoptotic stimulus. The protein is thought to induce apoptosis by binding the apoptosis inhibitory protein baculoviral IAP repeat-containing 4. Nuclear localization of this protein has also been observed. Alternate splicing of this gene results in two transcript variants encoding different isoforms. Additional transcript variants have been described, but their full-length sequences have not been determined. [provided by RefSeq, Jul 2008].
Function: Serine protease that shows proteolytic activity against a non-specific substrate beta-casein. Promotes or induces cell death either by direct binding to and inhibition of BIRC proteins (also called inhibitor of apoptosis proteins, IAPs), leading to an increase in caspase activity, or by a BIRC inhibition-independent, caspase-independent and serine protease activity-dependent mechanism. Cleaves THAP5 and promotes its degradation during apoptosis. Isoform 2 seems to be proteolytically inactive.