condense, and the organelles and plasma membrane retain their integrity in a process Kerr and his colleagues and Martin C. Raff Developmental Neurobiology Programme named apoptosis. The dead cells or their fragments are rapidly phagocytosed by neighboring cells or macro-phages before there is any leakage of the contents of the cells, and thus they do not induce an inflammatory London, WC1E 6BT ...

Hyperosmotic stresses represent one of the major constraints that adversely affect plants growth, development, and productivity. In this study, the focus was on early responses to hyperosmotic stress- (NaCl and sorbitol) induced reactive oxygen species (ROS) generation, cytosolic Ca(2+) concentration ([Ca(2+)]cyt) increase, ion fluxes, and mitochondrial potential variations, and on their links ...

Primary roots of two species of Sonoran Desert Cactaceae, Stenocereus gummosus and Pachycereus pringlei, have a determinate pattern of growth: meristematic cells divide only for a limited time and then differentiate. Detecting DNA fragmentation by terminal deoxynucleotide transferase-mediated dUTP nick-end labeling (TUNEL), we have shown that programmed cell death (PCD) was not involved in meri...

objective: the anti-cancer properties of curcumin, a poliphenol extract from the rhizome of curry, has been confirmed by many investigators. however, low levels of uptake, tissue distribution and rapid metabolism has limited its application as an anti-cancer drug. this study is aimed at increasing curcumin's water solubility due to a biodegradable, neutral and non-toxic micellar nano-carrier ca...

Unicellular eukaryotes and most prokaryotes possess distinct mechanisms of programmed cell death (PCD). How an "altruistic" trait, such as PCD, could evolve in unicellular organisms? To address this question, we developed a mathematical model of the virus-host co-evolution that involves interaction between immunity, PCD and cellular aggregation. Analysis of the parameter space of this model sho...

Demonstration of features of a programmed cell death (PCD) pathway in protozoan parasites initiated a great deal of interest and debate in the field of molecular parasitology. Several of the markers typical of mammalian apoptosis have been shown in Leishmania which suggested the existence of an apoptosis like death in these organisms. However, studies to elucidate the downstream events associat...

The unicellular organism Leishmania undergoes apoptosis-like cell death in response to external stress or exposure to antileishmanial agents. Here, we showed that 3-O,28-O-disuccinyl betulin (DiSB), a potent topoisomerase type IB inhibitor, induced parasitic cell death by generating oxidative stress. The characteristic feature of the death process resembled the programmed cell death (PCD) seen ...

The potential induction of a programmed cell death (PCD) in Trypanosoma b. brucei by 55 alkaloids of the quinoline, quinolizidine, isoquinoline, indole, terpene, tropane, steroid, and piperidine type was studied by measuring DNA fragmentation and changes in mitochondrial membrane potential. For comparison, the induction of apoptosis by the same alkaloids in human leukemia cells (Jurkat APO-S) w...

Programmed cell death (PCD) is a finely regulated and genetically controlled process which plays crucial roles in various biological courses. In human, inappropriate PCD could lead to various diseases including neurodegenerative diseases, ischemic damage, autoimmune disorders, and many types of cancers [1]. Over decades, great efforts have been made in identifying key cell death genes in variou...

Cell fate and cell death are central to any multicellular organism’s normal development. Our lab pioneered the use of the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans in studying the fundamental processes that control cell fate and death, two events that cannot be divorced from one another. We discovered several cell lineage mutants, including lin-4, let-7, lin-12 and lin-14, which affect developmental timi...