Apoptosis is a form of programmed cell death, which can be either a developmental process or a response from the human immune system. During apoptosis, the cell undergoes changes including chromosomal condensation, nuclear and chromosomal DNA fragmentation, and blebbing. There are two mechanisms used in the induction of apoptosis, via intrinsic and extrinsic pathways. The intrinsic pathway occurs when irreparable DNA lesions are found in the nucleus, and a number of cascades occur, ultimately leading to the activation of caspase-9 to cleave more procaspases and destroy the cellular components. The extrinsic pathway is initiated by the binding of an extracellular component, such as TNF-alpha or the Fas ligand on T cells, which causes a death domain to form inside the cell. The death domain activated FADD, which in turn cleaves procaspase-8 to form the active caspase-8 protein, which catalyzes a proteolytic cascade, resulting in the caspase-3 protein cleaving ICAD into DNAase, which works to degrade the chromatin and other cellular components affected in apoptosis. Current research is being done to find a chemical induction of apoptosis to target diseased cells such as cancer cells.
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