[HTML][HTML] Apoptosis: corralling the corpses
MO Hengartner - Cell, 2001 - cell.com
Cell, 2001•cell.com
One of the most impressive features of apoptosis is how quickly it all happens. One minute
the cell is happily sitting there on its plastic lawn; the next—boom!—it is in convulsions,
writhing in its death throes. Many a QuickTime movie has been produced to illustrate this
point. Unfortunately, most of these movies stop shortly after the cell falls apart. While less
photogenic, what happens to the remains of the cell after the camera stops rolling is no less
impressive—at least in vivo.Unlike apoptotic cells in culture, which mostly just detach from …
the cell is happily sitting there on its plastic lawn; the next—boom!—it is in convulsions,
writhing in its death throes. Many a QuickTime movie has been produced to illustrate this
point. Unfortunately, most of these movies stop shortly after the cell falls apart. While less
photogenic, what happens to the remains of the cell after the camera stops rolling is no less
impressive—at least in vivo.Unlike apoptotic cells in culture, which mostly just detach from …
One of the most impressive features of apoptosis is how quickly it all happens. One minute the cell is happily sitting there on its plastic lawn; the next—boom!—it is in convulsions, writhing in its death throes. Many a QuickTime movie has been produced to illustrate this point. Unfortunately, most of these movies stop shortly after the cell falls apart. While less photogenic, what happens to the remains of the cell after the camera stops rolling is no less impressive—at least in vivo.
Unlike apoptotic cells in culture, which mostly just detach from the substratum and drift into the medium, apoptotic cells in vivo are swiftly recognized by phagocytes or neighboring cells, then promptly engulfed and degraded. This process is so efficient that in typical tissue sections, it is difficult to find an apoptotic cell that is not already within another cell. What are the signals that mark an apoptotic cell as ready to be eaten? And what receptors and downstream signaling pathways relay this information? A recent paper in Cell (
cell.com