Programmed cell death-apoptosis in health and disease

Abstract

The health of multicellular organism depends not only on the body's ability to produce new cells but also on the ability of individual cells to destruct when they become superfluous or disordered. Millions of cells are sacrificed every hour. This critical process is essential for the development and maintenance of multicellular organism; is termed apoptosis. The significance of apoptosis was overlooked for decades. But biologists have recently made rapid strides in understanding how cellular suicide is enacted and controlled.