Why Does Apoptosis Occur?

This article basically summarizes apoptosis and why it occurs with cells. Apoptosis, or programmed cell death, is a normal component of the development and health of multicellular organisms. Cells die in response to a variety of stimuli and during apoptosis they do so in a controlled, regulated way. In this article, two researchers give their explanations on this topic.

Why are cells that die by programmed cell death generated?

According to Michael Hengartner, senior staff investigator at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, "there are several reasons, such as that it gets rid of cells that are not needed, in the way or potentially dangerous to the rest of the organism. Cells that are not needed may never have had a function. In other cases, they may have lost their function, or they may have competed and lost out to other cells. One of the most fascinating reasons for cell death is to get rid of dangerous cells, those that could be harmful to the rest of the organism. Cells could be mutants that would become cancerous; therefore, apoptosis is very important in the formation of cancer. "

H. Robert Horvitz, an expert on apoptosis at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology explains that "the mechanism that generates cells that are needed generates unneeded ones as well (which happens in the immune system); and some cells that die are needed, but only briefly. Cells die either because they are harmful or because it takes less energy to kill them than to maintain them."

Article:

Why does programmed cell death, or apoptosis, occur? Does it take place among bacteria and fungi or only in the cells of higher organisms?