Conversely, by activating this newly discovered molecular pathway, researchers may be able to rescue dying cells in the treatment of neurodegenerative and muscular diseases.
In the article, Steller and colleagues outline the entire molecular pathway by which a population of neuron cells in the brains of developing fruit flies communicate a message of survival to a different class of neighboring cells in the brain, called glial cells.
The research was conducted at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Mass., and the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel.
Steller says that these findings may serve as a model for what takes place in human brains, and possibly in other parts of the body, such as our immune system, skin, liver and colon, where this type of programmed cell death naturally occurs throughout life.
The human brain, as well as the fly brain, consists of two main types of cells: neurons and glial cells. Neurons are the primary cells of the brain and are responsible for a host of essential body functions, including learning, memory, behavior and sensory perception. Glial cells, on the other hand, play a more backseat role to neurons, acting mainly to support their activities.
During development, billions of both cell types arise, but only a small percentage actually survive to form the adult brain. The rest undergo a type of cell suicide known as "apoptosis" (pronounced a-pop-TOE-sis), from the Greek word for "falling away." This natural cell death occurs throughout the body, both during development as a means to sculpt critical organs and tissues, and in adults as a housekeeping function that eliminates potentially harmful cells.
Just how cells "know" whether to survive or perish has been the subject of intense study for nearly 50 years. In the last decade, researchers have learned that during development, virtually all cells r
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Contact: Whitney Clavin
clavinw@rockefeller.edu
212-327-7250
Rockefeller University
31-Jan-2002