Apoptosis General Overview – Imaluop

Hi, now we will discuss a special event in our cell, apoptosis general overview which will give you ideas about the apoptosis process and why it is important. 

What is Apoptosis: 

Do you know how the tails of tadpoles vanish when tadpoles become adults, it is due to the biological processes in which unwanted cells die and the process is called apoptosis. Fingers and toes formation during embryonic development is also due to the process of apoptosis and if apoptosis does not occur properly then toes and fingers become fused in new born babies so apoptosis is very important.

Everyday millions of infected, pre cancerous cells and old cells die by the process of apoptosis which help the new cells to develop smoothly. The world apoptosis means shed off which refers to death of unnecessary or harmful body cells for smooth functioning of our body.

Cells death can occur in two ways in animals and plants, controlled and programmed cell death is known as apoptosis while uncontrolled cell death is known as necrosis. Apoptosis occurs in all multicellular organisms including both plants and animals for maintaining a healthy cellular environment in the organism.

Different Pathways of Apoptosis: 

Removal of unwanted cells by programmed cell death or apoptosis occurs inside our cells in two ways. This division of apoptosis is on the basis of the factors which trigger the apoptosis process; the stimulating agents may be intrinsic or extrinsic in nature.

Intrinsic Pathway of Apoptosis: 

When different internal factors like DNA damage inside our cells or growth factor are absent it triggers apoptosis. In this pathway apoptosis is controlled by two groups of biomolecules Bax and Bcl – 2  which determines that cells should remain alive or will die by the process of apoptosis. 

Extrinsic Pathway of Apoptosis: 

Our body cells have different receptors on their surface when some ligand molecules bind to some specific receptors of the cells then it triggers programmed death of cells and this pathway of apoptosis is known as extrinsic pathway of apoptosis. 

Importance of Apoptosis: 

Now we will discuss how apoptosis keeps an organism safe from different harmful effects and how it is useful for optimum development. 

• Everyday millions of old cells undergo apoptosis and new cells replace them which implies that apoptosis keeps the cells in balance. 
• If old cells are not removed regularly and new cells continue to add then it will increase the body size at a very fast rate but it does not occur due to removal of unwanted old cells regularly by the process of apoptosis. 
• Cancerous cells, pre cancerous cells or infected cells which cause damage to other healthy existing cells if the harmful cells are not removed by the process of apoptosis. 
• Different organ formation in embryonic development occurs by the process of apoptosis, for example when toes and fingers formation occurs separation between the adjacent fingers and toes occurs due to apoptosis. 
• Apoptosis helps to remove unwanted body parts by programmed death of unwanted cells as seen during loss of tail in adult frogs which is present in tadpoles but unwanted in adult stage. 
• Removal of vestigial organ parts and removal of some other organ in embryonic stage like removal of Wolffian duct are removed by programmed cell death or apoptosis. 
• Apoptosis also helps to prevent cancer because when cells start to divide in uncontrolled ways, if apoptosis works properly then it finishes the unwanted cells. As a result tumour formation does not occur but if apoptosis does not work properly then cells divide in uncontrolled ways and cause cancer. It is most common in some cancers when cancerous cells prevent the process of apoptosis which results in uncontrolled cell division and cancer. 

Reference: Apoptosis General Overview

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