Spontaneous cell death in the chorion laeve.

The granulosa cells of the dominant follicle grow, differentiate, and die in a roughly predictable amount of time. Because the simultaneous death of this population of cells results in menstruation, one may say that the life span of this population of cells "times" the menstrual cycle. Metamorphosis in amphibians and morphogenesis in several vertebrates are other examples of developmental milestones that are "timed" by the life span of specific cell populations. In all these examples, cell death is associated with a specific histology, apoptosis. Apoptosis characterizes the cell death that produces the progressive disappearance of the trophoblast in the chorion laeve as term is approached. Therefore, the histology of trophoblastic death in the near-term chorion laeve corresponds to that of populations of cells with life spans that "time" developmental events. The trophoblastic cell population of the chorion laeve is prematurely destroyed by infiltrating maternal leukocytes in cases of chorioamnionitis.