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Out‐of body experiences: Cell‐free cell death
Author(s) -
Hengartner Michael O.
Publication year - 1995
Publication title -
bioessays
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.175
H-Index - 184
eISSN - 1521-1878
pISSN - 0265-9247
DOI - 10.1002/bies.950170612
Subject(s) - programmed cell death , apoptosis , microbiology and biotechnology , biology , endogeny , cell , homeostasis , computational biology , genetics , biochemistry
Apoptosis (programmed cell death) is an evolutionarily conserved cellular process, important for development and homeostasis (1) . Most apoptotic cells share a common set of morphological and physiological characteristics that distinguish them from necrotic deaths (2) . While genetic studies have indicated that these characteristic changes result from the activation of an endogenous ‘suicide program’ (3) , little is known about the nature of this program and the molecular events underlying these changes. Two recent papers (4,5) describing cell‐free extracts that reproduce several of the characteristic changes observed in apoptotic cells promise to make these phenomena accessible to biochemical analysis.