Apoptosis, programmed cell death, is a process involved in the development and maintenance of cell homeostasis in multicellular organisms. It is typically accompanied by the activation of a class of cysteine proteases called caspases. Apoptotic caspases are classified into the initiator caspases and the executioner caspases, according to the stage of their action in apoptotic processes. Althoug...

Photodynamic therapy (PDT), an approved anticancer treatment, is reported as a potent inducer of programmed cell death (PCD) by both apoptosis and autophagy. The present study investigated the kinetics of both autophagy and caspase activation in MCF-7 cells submitted to mTHPC-PDT upon condition of treatment promoting ER accumulation of mTHPC. Fluence-dependent immediate cytochrome c (cyt C) rel...

Activation of aspartate-specific cysteine proteases (caspases) plays a crucial role in programmed cell death (PCD) in animals. Although to date caspases have not been identified in plants, caspase-like activity was described in tobacco during a hypersensitive response to pathogens and in Arabidopsis and tomato cell cultures during chemical-induced PCD. Caspase-like activity was also detected in...

p-nonylphenol (p-np) as a non ionic surfactant is used in many industries such as pesticides, cosmetics,detergents and so on. our previous study showed that the p-np causes reduction in viability of the rats bonemarrow mesenchymal stem cells (mscs). the aim of the present study was to investigate the mechanism of the cell death due to p-np exposure. the cells, after 3rd passage were treated wit...

Abstract Many chemotherapeutic drugs and treatments initiate apoptotic cell death by inducing the release of cytochrome c from the mitochondria, which activates Apaf-1. This large (approximately 130–140 kDa) protein is a mammalian homolog of CED-4, an essential protein involved in programmed cell death in the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans. Cytochrome c activates Apaf-1, which oligomerizes to ...

The steroid hormone ecdysone triggers the rapid and massive destruction of larval tissues through transcriptional cascades that culminate in rpr and hid expression and caspase activation. Here we describe the use of genetic screens to further our understanding of this steroid-triggered programmed cell death response. Pupal lethal mutants were screened for specific defects in larval salivary gla...

Apoptosis depends upon the activation of intracellular caspases which are classically induced by either an intrinsic (mitochondrial based) or extrinsic (cytokine) pathway. However, in the process of explaining how endotoxin activated monocytes are able to induce apoptosis of vascular smooth muscle cells when co-cultured, we uncovered a transcellular apoptosis inducing pathway that utilizes casp...

death is something real which is fully accepted by human being, the definition of death is different among public and scientists such as philosophy experts and biologists. here we leave the philosophy content to themselves and look at the death from the biological point of view which may be some kind of philosophy as well. in biological science the death is well defined so it is the end of life...