Allergy.  1995 Dec;15(4):569-595.

Current status and perspectives of researches on programmed cell death in immune system

• Chung YH

Abstract

Programmed cell death(PCD), or apoptosis, is a distinct process of cell death in response to specific physiological or toxic signal. This genetically programmed form of cellular suicide is intimately involved in various biological processes including growth, embryogenesis, immune function and oncogenesis. The best-defined biochemical event in apoptosis is cleavage of DNA at linker regions between nucleosomes which is easily detected by agarose gel electrophoresis of DNA as a typical ladder pattern. This internucleosomal DNA fragmentation is known to be always detected when morphological changes of apoptosis are recognized. In this review we introduced the concept, biochemical and immunological features of this process, and technologies currently available to study various aspects of PCD in immune system. And several perspective views for future researches on this subject were also discussed.

MeSH Terms

Apoptosis
Biochemical Phenomena
Biological Processes
Carcinogenesis
Cell Death*
DNA
DNA Fragmentation
Electrophoresis, Agar Gel
Embryonic Development
Female
Immune System*
Nucleosomes
Pregnancy
Suicide
DNA
Nucleosomes