ABSTRACT
Nerve cell death is responsible for the clinical symptoms of many neurologic disorders, including the brain damage that occurs subsequent to traumatic challenge and stroke as well as after cardiac surgery. Naturally-occurring cell death thus constitutes a fundamental aspect of animal development and a fundamental problem in the field of developmental biology. During Caenorhabditis elegans’ development, in addition to the 959 cells that are generated to form the adult body, there are 131 cells generated that undergo naturally-occurring, or programmed, cell death. In the neurologic disorders characterized by nerve cell deaths that occur in response to insults or injury, it appears that many of these cell deaths are not immediate events but rather are delayed, secondary responses to the initiating challenges. Cells normally die within about an hour of the time that they are formed and, in most cases, before the onset of differentiation. C. elegans is a free-living nonparasitic nematode.
