Saunders J W
Science. 1966 Nov 4;154(3749):604-12. doi: 10.1126/science.154.3749.604.
The principal conclusion to be drawn from the foregoing discussion is that the death of cells and the destruction of tissues, organs, and organ systems are programmed as normal morphogenetic events in the development of multicellular organisms. Death in embryonic systems may thus be explored within the same conceptual framework as growth and differentiation. The present exploration has revealed that death during embryogenesis serves utilitarian goals in some instances, at least, that its occurrence is subject to control by factors of the immediate cellular and humoral environment, and that aberrations in its normal pattern of expression provide the mechanism for realization of many mutant phenotypes. Hopefully, it has also pointed toward the appropriate formulation of some of the problems that confront us in understanding the control of death at the level of genetic transcription, the biochemical events which determine and accompany its occurrence, and the pathways of disposition and the developmental significance of disassembled cellular building blocks.
从上述讨论中得出的主要结论是，细胞死亡以及组织、器官和器官系统的破坏是多细胞生物发育过程中正常形态发生事件的程序设定。因此，胚胎系统中的死亡可以在与生长和分化相同的概念框架内进行探究。目前的探究表明，至少在某些情况下，胚胎发育过程中的死亡具有功利性目的，其发生受直接细胞和体液环境因素的控制，并且其正常表达模式的异常为许多突变表型的实现提供了机制。希望它也为我们在理解基因转录水平上的死亡控制、决定并伴随其发生的生化事件、分解的细胞构建块的处置途径及其发育意义等方面所面临的一些问题的恰当表述指明了方向。
