Apoptosis: Its Physiological Implication And Therapeutic Possibilities

Abstract

Apoptosis is the process of programmed cell death (PCD) which usually occurs in multicellular organisms. In this case, biochemical events leads to morphological cell changes and death. Some of these changes are blebbing, cell shrinkage, nuclear fragmentation, chromatin condensation and chromosomal Deoxyribonucleic Acid (DNA) fragmentation. Apoptosis is however distinct from necrosis which is a form of traumatic cell death that results from acute cellular injury. Apoptosis generally confers advantages during an organism's life cycle. One of the advantages can be seen in the differentiation of fingers and toes in a developing human embryo. This occurs because cells between the fingers apoptose and causes the digits to be separate. Unlike necrosis, apoptosis produces cell fragments called apoptotic bodies that phagocytic cells are able to engulf and quickly remove before the contents of the cell can spill out onto surrounding cells and cause damage. Also, between 50 and 70 billion cells die each day due to apoptosis in the average human adult. For an average child between the ages of 8 and 14, approximately 20 billion to 30 billion cells die a day.. In addition to its importance as a biological phenomenon, defective apoptotic processes have been implicated in an extensive variety of diseases whereby excessive apoptosis causes atrophy and an insufficient apoptosis results in uncontrolled cell proliferation leading to cancer or tumour

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“…According to contemporary science, the process of programmed cell death, apoptosis, leads to morphological cell changes and death. Some of these changes are blebbing, cell shrinkage, and nuclear fragmentation [1]. During the fragmentation, chromosomes are packed in so-called apoptotic bodies that are expelled outside the dying cell.…”

Novel Chrysin-De-Allyl PAC-1 Hybrid Analogues as Anticancer Compounds: Design, Synthesis, and Biological Evaluation

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