Apoptosis

What is apoptosis?

Apoptosis is your body’s way of getting rid of damaged cells through a process called programmed cell death. “Programmed” means your body knows these cells need to die and manages the process from start to finish. Instead of growing and dividing like healthy cells, cells that go through apoptosis follow a set of steps that lead to their breakdown.

Apoptosis is a normal process that supports your health. Your body needs to get rid of cells that are too old or damaged to work properly. If those cells keep hanging around, they can harm you. Cells with damaged DNA can make copies of themselves and build up inside your body, leading to cancer or other conditions. Apoptosis prevents this from happening.

When things go as planned, apoptosis helps you. But glitches in the system can cause apoptosis to happen too much or not enough. Too much apoptosis can lead to the destruction of cells your body needs. This happens with conditions like Alzheimer’s disease. If apoptosis doesn’t happen when it should, or doesn’t happen enough, damaged cells stick around in your body and continue to grow and multiply. Either way, when apoptosis doesn’t happen the way it should, it can harm you and lead to serious problems.

Understanding the definition and meaning of apoptosis may be important to you because of a medical diagnosis. Maybe your healthcare provider diagnosed you with a condition that involves abnormal apoptosis. Or maybe this is happening to a loved one.

It can be hard to connect tiny changes you can only see under a microscope (happening to cells inside your body) to symptoms you feel or changes you notice. But understanding apoptosis can help you make sense of the “why” behind your diagnosis. It can also help you talk with your provider about your condition and possible treatments.

What is the purpose of apoptosis?

Apoptosis supports your health by clearing out cells your body doesn’t need. It starts before you’re even born. Certain cells die at the right time so different parts of a fetus, like the fingers, can form properly. After birth, apoptosis plays an important role in:

• Supporting your body’s constant need to replace old cells and tissues (groups of cells).
• Helping your immune system fight infections.
• Ridding your body of damaged cells that can’t be repaired.
• Ensuring that damaged cells don’t multiply.
• Supporting balance in your body’s tissues (homeostasis).

How does apoptosis work?

Certain proteins in your body start the process of apoptosis. An example of such a protein is p53 — also known as a tumor suppressor protein because it helps prevent uncontrolled cell division (which can lead to a tumor). The p53 protein activates certain genes (which hold the instructions for your body) to fix cells with damaged DNA. If the damage is beyond repair, the protein won’t let the cell divide and multiply. Instead, the protein sends a signal that begins apoptosis.

Once apoptosis begins, a series of chemical changes happen that cause the cell to break into many small parts. The cell sends signals to other cells, called phagocytes (a type of white blood cell), telling them to consume the cell parts. At the same time, the dying cell also sends signals that lessen inflammation and help nearby tissues heal.

Can too much apoptosis be harmful?

Too much apoptosis can cause healthy cells to die when they shouldn’t. This extra cell death is linked to the development of many different health conditions, including:

• Alzheimer’s disease.
• Huntington’s disease.
• Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).
• Parkinson’s disease.
• AIDS.
• Ulcerative colitis.
• Rheumatoid arthritis.

What happens if there is too little apoptosis?

Apoptosis is vital for ridding your body of damaged cells or preventing uncontrolled cell growth and division. When apoptosis doesn’t happen as it should, abnormal cells can divide and multiply. This can lead to cancer and autoimmune disorders.

What is the role of apoptosis in disease treatment?

Researchers know that apoptosis plays a role in the development of certain conditions. So, they’re investigating medications that can block apoptosis when it’s happening too much or stimulate it when it’s needed.

For example, certain proteins in your body may prevent apoptosis from happening when it should. As a result, damaged cells stick around, and tumors can grow. Researchers are looking into drugs that can block the action of these proteins, in turn allowing apoptosis to occur. In other situations, you might need a drug that slows down apoptosis so it doesn’t kill the cells you need.

Therapies that manage apoptosis could play a role in managing many different conditions. Your healthcare provider can tell you more about this promising research and what it might mean for you in the future.

What is apoptosis vs. necrosis?

Apoptosis and necrosis are both processes that lead to cell death. One main difference is that apoptosis plays a role in your development before you’re born. For example, it helps fetal tissues turn into different parts like fingers. Necrosis doesn’t play a role in fetal development. Instead, it occurs in response to infections and other factors that damage your cells long after birth. Other differences and similarities between apoptosis and necrosis aren’t so clear-cut.

Researchers used to think apoptosis and necrosis were direct opposites. They believed apoptosis was a planned, tidy form of cell death, while necrosis was an unplanned, messy form. To some extent, this is true. Necrosis can cause the contents of a dying cell to spill out into surrounding tissues. This “messy” process triggers inflammation. With apoptosis, cells die without spilling out their contents. Instead, the parts of the cell are neatly packaged into small bits that immune cells called phagocytes consume.

But these two processes are also similar in some ways. Researchers have found that some forms of necrosis are, like apoptosis, programmed. These forms of programmed, or regulated, necrosis are called necroptosis and pyroptosis. Your body may initiate necroptosis in certain situations when apoptosis isn’t possible. In these ways, the different types of cell death can work together to rid your body of unnecessary or harmful cells.

What is the pronunciation of apoptosis?

The Merriam-Webster dictionary offers two pronunciations of apoptosis. In one, you pronounce both “p” sounds. In the other, the second “p” is silent. The two pronunciations are:

• App-up-toe-sis.
• App-uh-toe-sis.

Feel free to ask your healthcare provider how to pronounce this word or others related to your medical care.