Apoptosis | How our Cell Die

Apoptosis or type one programmed cell death is intrinsic death program of the cell (Simone et. al., 2006). Do you know that our body eliminates billions of unwanted cells via apoptotic pathway every day? That means there are billions of our cells will die everyday. The new born cells will take place to make our body functions.

Apoptosis is Important

Apoptosis plays an important role in the development and homeostasis of multicellular organisms (Pongpun et. al., 2009). It is important for organ development, tissue remodeling, immune response and tumour suppression (Liang et. al., 2009). According to cancer research, excessive occurrence of apoptosis will cause numerous pathological conditions like AID and neurodegenerative disorders like Alzheimer’s disease and Huntington’s disease. On the other hand, deficiency of apoptosis is the main factor to the progression of autoimmune diseases and cancer (Avi et. al., 2008). Therefore, the mechanism of apoptosis should not go extreme in our body. It is neither over do the work nor less do the work.

Apoptosis Signals

Apoptosis is important for tissue growth and maintenance. There are many conditions that give signal to the cell to undergo suicide. For example, the decrease in the local concentration of a critical tissue morphogen or growth factor, the severe tension to critical cellular components like DNA or cytoskeleton which are affected by heat shock, ionizing radiation, bacterial or viral infection and oncogenic transformation (Simone et. al., 2006).

Apoptosis Mechanism

When the cells undergo the apoptosis, there is ruffling, blebbing and condensation of the plasma and nuclear membranes, and continuous aggregation of the nuclear chromatin. At the same time, the mitochondria and ribosomes remain as their gross constitution. The cytoskeletal structure will also be corrupted. When the cell gets smaller, it breaks up into a group of apoptotic bodies and will rapidly be gulped by adjacent macrophages or phagocytic cells. There is no inflammatory response in this process (Byung et. al., 2002).

In conclusion, apoptosis, type one programmed cell death is essential to retain our body to function. The failure of apoptosis is one of the reasons that causes cancer progression. Thus, please take good care of your health as our body system is the best doctor for us.

This is a part of literature review of my final year project thesis. I wish to share with you all what i have done.