BIOL 201 Lecture Notes - Lecture 30: Oncogene, Mitochondrion, Necrosis
19 Apr 2018
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Document Summary
During development of an embryo, the body produces more cells than are needed. These cells eventually need to be destroyed by programmed cell death i. e. apoptosis. This leads to the formation of a functional organism. Early in development, there is a large number of motor neurons that need to migrate to different muscle tissues/fibers. The number of motor neurons in the spinal cord decreases because the motor neurons that don"t find a muscle fiber will undergo apoptosis. Cells are inherently suicidal in the absence of trophic factors. These factors prevent the cell from programmed cell death. This cell suicide follows a program & these cells also perform controlled demolition. Apoptosis prevents dying cells from damaging its neighbours. Small fragments of cells post-suicide can be cleaned up by phagocytic cells. This is different from what happens in necrotic tissues because cells burst causing widespread damage and inflammation of tissue.
