Apoptosis – A Review Article
Ikpe Vitalis Ph.D
Department of Biochemistry
Faculty of Natural Sciences
Caritas University, Enugu, Nigeria
ABSTRACT
The survival of living beings depends on the correct and co-ordinate functioning of various cell types. For each cell line, control of the number of cells is the result of a dynamic balance between cell proliferation and cell death. Apoptosis is a programmed cell death prosing that cell death during development is not of accidental nature but follows a sequence of controlled steps lending to locally and temporally define self destruction. Cells can die by necrosis but apoptosis is a form of death that the cell itself initiates regulates and executes using molecular machinery. The cell brings about its own death and lyses signaled from outside or programmed in its genes by systematically degrading its own macromolecules. Gain- and loss-of function models of genes in the core apoptotic pathway suggest that perturbation of cellular homeostasis can be a primary pathological event that results in disease. There is now compelling evidence that insufficient apoptosis can result in cancer or autoimmunity whereas accelerated cell death is evident in degenerative diseases, immunodeficiency and infertility.
Keywords: Cell, Life, Death, Decision
