Matters of life and cell death.

Apoptosis serves to control cell numbers during development and throughout life. It is important in normal development of the nervous system and is a feature of neurodegenerative disease. Therefore, understanding signaling pathways regulating apoptosis in neurons are of particular interest. Neurotrophic factors are known to mediate survival and differentiation of neurons, and recent advances have led to the identification of various signal transduction pathways mediated by the neurotrophins through their receptors. In recent years, experiments in mammalian and invertebrate systems have led to the identification of key regulators and effectors of apoptosis in many cell types.