Barman Jiban, Kumar Ritesh, Saha Gundappa, Tiwari Kartikeya, Dubey Vikash K
Department of Biosciences and Bioengineering, Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati, Assam, 781039, India.
Baylor Institute for Immunology Research, Baylor Research Institute, Dallas, Texas 75204, United States.
Curr Pharm Biotechnol. 2018;19(8):644-663. doi: 10.2174/1389201019666180821093239.
Apoptosis, a form of programmed cell death, plays a very crucial role in various physiological processes for maintaining cell homeostasis. This process has several characteristic features like membrane blebbing, nuclear condensation, DNA fragmentation and cell shrinkage. Any defect in this highly regulated process eventually leads to extended cell survival and could result in neoplastic cell expansion followed by genetic instability. The apoptotic machinery is mainly processed and regulated by various caspases, a family of cysteine proteases. Significant advancement has been made towards understanding the molecular mechanisms of apoptosis which provides new insights in modulating the life or death of a cell. The main goal of this review is to highlight recent updates on apoptosis, the cross-talk with other cellular death processes and its therapeutic potentials.
细胞凋亡是一种程序性细胞死亡形式，在维持细胞稳态的各种生理过程中起着至关重要的作用。这个过程有几个特征，如细胞膜起泡、核浓缩、DNA片段化和细胞收缩。这个高度调控的过程中的任何缺陷最终都会导致细胞存活时间延长，并可能导致肿瘤细胞扩张，继而引发基因不稳定。细胞凋亡机制主要由各种半胱天冬酶（一类半胱氨酸蛋白酶）处理和调节。在理解细胞凋亡的分子机制方面已经取得了重大进展，这为调节细胞的生死提供了新的见解。本综述的主要目的是强调细胞凋亡的最新进展、与其他细胞死亡过程的相互作用及其治疗潜力。
