ABSTRACT
The term apoptosis describes a series of gross cellular changes characteristic of an active or programmed form of cell death that is now accepted as a physiological, as opposed to accidental, mode of cell deletion. Active cell death represents a normal control mechanism as profoundly important to multicellular organisms as cell proliferation or differentiation. In mammals, the significance of physiological cell death is illustrated by the removal of cells through activation of their apoptotic mechanism during tissue modeling and organogenesis in embryonic development, and in the control of homeostasis in a diversity of tissue types [1]. There is much evidence to support the view that programmed cell death is a cell-autonomous process [2]. It has also been suggested that, with few exceptions, all cells from all lineages are programmed to undergo active self-destruction unless they receive survival signals to suppress that program [3].
