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Cellular Aging: Cell Death

Future Expectations



Apoptosis research was quite extensive at the end of the twentieth century, and it focused on several goals:

  • • Blockage of apoptosis by inhibition of caspases. Several inhibitors of caspases are now known. Although inhibition of caspase may not protect a cell limited for other reasons, it is likely to produce a "zombie" cell, which continues to exist but is incapable of performing a specific function such as conducting an impulse or contracting, and in acute situations such as a heart attack it may buy time.
  • • Maintenance of challenged systems. For instance, approaches used in addressing the loss of cells in AIDS include supportive therapies and administration of growth factors that are known to suppress apoptosis.
  • • Targeting of apoptosis. Attempts have been made to control apoptosis by attacking the machinery of apoptosis (such as caspases, particularly in acute emergencies such as stroke), but since most cells possess the machinery for apoptosis, regulation of apoptosis is more likely to focus on identifying the cells to be controlled and arranging a mechanism to specifically target these cells, using inhibitors or ligands to achieve the up- or down-regulation of the apoptosis machinery.

RICHARD A. LOCKSHIN ZAHRA ZAKERI

See also CELLULAR AGING: TELOMERES; DNA DAMAGE AND REPAIR; THEORIES OF BIOLOGICAL AGING.



BIBLIOGRAPHY

EARNSHAW, W. C.; MARTINS, L. M.; and KAUFMAN, S. H. "Mammalian Caspases: Structure, Activation, Substrates, and Functions During Apoptosis." Annual Review of Biochemistry 68 (1999): 383–424.

HAYFLICK, L. "Human Cells and Aging." Scientific American 218, no. 3 (March 1968): 32–37.

KERR, J. F. R.; WYLLIE, A. H.; and CURRIE, A. R. "Apoptosis: A Basic Biological Phenomenon with Wide-Ranging Implications in Tissue Kinetics." Journal of Cancer 26 (1972): 239–257.

LOWE, S. W. "Cancer Therapy and p53." Current Opinion in Oncology 7, no. 6 (1995): 547–553.

WARNER, H. R. "Apoptosis: A Two-Edged Sword in Aging." Annual of the New York Academy of Science 887 (1999): 1–11.

WARNER, H. R.; HODES, R. J.; and POCINKI, K. "What Does Cell Death Have to Do with Aging?" Journal of the American Geriatrics Society 45, no. 9 (1997): 1140–1146.

ZAKERI, Z.; BURSCH, W.; TENNISWOOD, M.; and LOCKSHIN, R. A. "Cell Death: Programmed, Apoptosis, Necrosis, or Other?" Cell Death and Differentiation 2 (1995): 83–92.

Additional topics

Medicine EncyclopediaAging Healthy - Part 1Cellular Aging: Cell Death - Cellular Senescence, Cell Death: Programmed, Apoptosis, And Necrosis, Cell Death Genes, Cell Death And Aging