A Protein Complex Restrains a Homicidal Enzyme during Sperm Differentiation

june submitted, created time 1 year 3 months (biology.plosjournals.org)

If one were to take a moral view of cell activities, the caspases would be condemned on two counts. They not only give the order to kill cells, they also carry it out. But in the real-life utilitarian world of the cell, all this killing is simply a means to an end. Programmed cell death, or apoptosis, plays an important role in embryonic development and in protecting the body from damaged or aged cells.

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Vision loss linked to greater risk of early death

DanyC submitted, created time 1 year 5 months (www.reutershealth.com)

A study hints, older men and women with cataracts or age-related macular degeneration (ARMD) are at increased risk for suffering an early death, relative to older people without these two types of visual impairment.

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Effect of Exercise Intensity on Exercise-Induced Lymphocyte Apoptosis

angelfish submitted, created time 1 year 7 months (www.thieme-connect.com)

"Because lymphocyte apoptosis is significantly elevated immediately following high-intensity exercise in humans, it seems intuitive that the cell death process must be initiated at some point during the task. This study was designed to determine whether exercise-induced lymphocyte apoptosis occurs at a threshold level of intensity, or exists only following maximal or near-maximal exercise intensities. Fourteen untrained subjects completed a discontinuous, incremental treadmill test to exhaustion (V·O2max)

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Autophagy Gene-Dependent Clearance of Apoptotic Cells during Embryonic Development

deirdre submitted, created time 1 year 9 months (www.sciencedirect.com)

“Autophagy is commonly observed in metazoan organisms during programmed cell death (PCD), but its function in dying cells has been unclear. We studied the role of autophagy in embryonic cavitation, the earliest PCD process in mammalian development. Embryoid bodies (EBs) derived from cells lacking the autophagy genes, atg5 or beclin 1, fail to cavitate. This defect is due to persistence of cell corpses, rather than impairment of PCD

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Autophagy: Paying Charon's Toll

diggman submitted, created time 1 year 9 months (www.sciencedirect.com)

Autophagy (literally self-eating) has diverse cytoprotective functions but also is linked to programmed cell death (PCD). In this issue, Scientists analyze the role of autophagy in PCD during development. Unexpectedly they find that autophagy induces apoptotic cells to present a signal to ensure their clearance, which is crucial for mouse embryonic morphogenesis.

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Review of the function of programmed cell death 1 and its ligands

collapsar submitted, created time 1 year 10 months (www.nature.com)

“The programmed cell death 1 (PD-1) surface receptor binds to two ligands, PD-L1 and PD-L2. Studies have shown that PD-1–PD-L interactions control the induction and maintenance of peripheral T cell tolerance and indicate a previously unknown function for PD-L1 on nonhematopoietic cells in protecting tissues from autoimmune attack. PD-1 and its ligands have also been exploited by a variety of microorganisms to attenuate antimicrobial immunity and facilitate chronic infection

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