Differentiating life and death: An inflammatory affair
- Published
- Accepted
- Subject Areas
- Cell Biology, Molecular Biology
- Keywords
- Apoptosis, Programmed cell death, Inflammation, NF-ĸB signaling, DNA damage, Differentiation, Cell metabolism, Cancer
- Copyright
- © 2018 Lane
- Licence
- This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ Preprints) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited.
- Cite this article
- 2018. Differentiating life and death: An inflammatory affair. PeerJ Preprints 6:e27080v1 https://doi.org/10.7287/peerj.preprints.27080v1
Abstract
Programmed cell death signaling networks are frequently activated to coordinate the process of cell differentiation, and a variety of apoptotic events can mediate the process. This can include the ligation of death receptors, the activation of downstream caspases, and the induction of chromatin fragmentation, and all of these events can occur without downstream induction of death. Importantly, regulators of programmed cell death also have established roles in mediating differentiation. This review will provide an overview of apoptosis and its regulation by Inhibitors of Apoptosis (IAPs) and Bcl-2 family members. It will then outline the cross-talk between NF-ĸB and apoptotic signaling in the regulation of apoptosis before discussing the function of these regulators in the control of cell differentiation. It will end on a discussion of how a DNA damage-directed, cell cycle-dependent differentiation program may be controlled across multiple passages through cell cycle, and will assert that the failure to properly differentiate is the underlying cause of cancer.
Author Comment
This article is meant to lay the foundation of a differentiation program that integrates programmed cell death signaling, proliferation signaling, differentiation signaling,calcium signaling, and DNA damage response signaling across multiple passages through cell cycle. Critical to the regulation of this program is the multi-functionality of various apoptotic regulators that mediate this cross-talk. It will also discuss various testable mechanisms by which this program can be controlled.