Investigation of Apoptosis-Involved Processes by Mass Spectrometric Identification of the Apoptosis-Associated Proteins in IgM-Induced Burkitt Lymphoma Cells

Abstract

In recent years there has been an explosion of interest in various processes involved in cell death, and new data have appeared. Although apoptosis, the programmed cell death plays a major role in development, homeostasis and immune response in multicellular organisms and controls lymphocyte growth and selection, this research area has not attracted great interest in the past for several reasons. First, the efficient disposal of apoptotic cells by phagocytosis is a very rapid process. The amount of apoptotic cells is a small fraction of the total. Second, death most often is a passive process for the entire organism, but the cells play an active roll in cell death. Apoptotic cell death can be distinguished from necrotic cell death by microscopic inspection. Necrotic cell death, the pathologic form of cell death, is caused by an acute cellular injury resulting in cellular swelling and loss of membrane integrity. In contrast, apoptotic cell death is characterized by controlled autodigestion of functional, important proteins of the cell connected with cellular shrinkage, membrane blebbing and chromatin condensation. The nuclear DNA of apoptotic cells is often fragmented. The membrane integrity of the cells is maintained, but changes within give a signal for neighboring phagocytotic cells to feed on the apoptotic cells. Apoptotic cell death is a process without induction of an inflammatory response, although this happens in necrotic cell death.KeywordsApoptotic Cell DeathBurkitt LymphomaNecrotic Cell DeathBurkitt Lymphoma CellEdman SequencingThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.