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Biology of Death ― Some Pros and Cons

Running head: BIOLOGY OF DEATH ― SOME PROS AND CONS

Biology of Death ― Some Pros and Cons:
Reconsidering What Apoptosis will Bring in the Future

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Biology of Death ― Some Pros and Cons

Abstract
In recent years, the biology of death has received attention in biomedical field.
The biology of death is an area of study to seek answers the fundamental question; whydoes cell of organisms die? The researches of cell death has progressed surely andsteadily for the past two decades; and besides, researchers all over the world have tried
to elucidate mechanisms of diseases and find wide application of this field. However,there will be a danger of losing sight of the meaningfulness of these researches. This
paper is organized into six sections; introduction, the mechanism of Alzheimer’s disease,cancer, AIDS, the possible future brought on by biology of death and conclusion.

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Biology of Death ― Some Pros and Cons

Biology of Death ― Some Pros and Cons:
Reconsidering What Apoptosis will Bring in the Future

For a long time, all the researches in biomedical and molecular biology field had
been conducted in order to elucidate how and why cell of organisms multiply anddifferentiate; in other words, how cell is alive. On the other hand, the biology of deathfocuses flatly different point of researches; how and why cell more like curry out
suicide than die. Thus, the biology of death gave innovative point of view to all thebiology-related fields in the way considering cell life from perspective of cell death forthe first time; indeed, Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2002 was awarded jointly
Sydney Brenner, H. Robert Horvitz and John E. Sulston for their discoveries concerning
programmed cell death.
The first paper mentioning cell death was published in a journal of pathology.
Crawford, Kerr and Currie (1972) stated that they found dying cells different fromnecrosis in the diseased tissues. Necrosis is the disorganized rupture of cells; in contrast,
what they found under a microscope were “. . . cells . . . seen to be shrunk, and there
was condensation and fragmentation of their nuclear chromatin” (para.7). From analysisof an observation, they advocated that there was another way of cell death via a certain

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process aside from necrosis. They also said that “. . . [another way of cell death] should
be known by a term that is descriptive of its functional significance ― apoptosis”(para.9). Incidentally, apoptosis is the Greek word meaning falling of leaves fromdeciduous trees; it is proven later that apoptosis act on when trees drop their leaves.
Apoptosis had not been realized for over a decade, because the research conducted byCrawford et al was anything more than observation by microscope; subsequently, Ellisand Horvitz (1986) discovered that there were specific genes giving a command tocause apoptosis in nematode C. elegance. They said that “. . . two genes, ced-3 andced-4 . . . may be involved in determining which cells express the fate of cell death”(para.5) and concluded that apoptosis coined by Crawford et al was the cell death
programmed by specific genes. Furthermore, Green and Reed (1998) came tounderstand that “the effectors of apoptosis are represented by a family of intracellular
cysteine proteases known as caspases” (para.5). They found that although they inhibited
caspase, apoptosis sometimes occurred under certain conditions. From this, theyindicated that there were many other pathways of occurring apoptosis.
Thus, the mechanism of apoptosis has become elucidated step by step, andresearchers have tackled an enigma of apoptosis programmed by specific genes inrecent years. However the phenomenon of apoptosis raises one question; why does

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apoptosis have to occur? Horvitz gave a brief answer that apoptosis occurs because cellrecognized “self” by considering all the various factors together (as cited in “Why Does
Programmed Cell Death,” 1999). Hengartner also explained that cell recognized its
condition; that is, harmful to rest of the organisms or not, and decided whether cellshould die or not (as cited in “Why Does Programmed Cell Death,” 1999). He addedthat “[c]ells that are not needed may never have had a function. In other cases, they may
have lost their function, or may have competed and lost out to other cells” (as quoted in“Why Does Programmed Cell Death,” 1999). Apoptosis is therefore very important in
self-protection and self-limitation of cell that are involved in progression of many kindsof diseases. In fact, the researches of apoptosis have shown the new way to elucidate
mechanism of many life-threatening diseases.
Mechanism of Alzheimer’s Disease
Alzheimer’s was a disease that researchers essentially didn’t know about its
mechanism; however, the study of Alzheimer’s has been developed to find a complete
therapy in recent years. Barinaga (1998) reported that apoptosis might be involved in
Alzheimer’s although that hadn’t been totally proven yet. She mentioned that:[Two research] teams showed that [βamyloid], which builds up in the brain ofpeople with Alzheimer’s, causes cultured neurons to die by apoptosis ― also

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known as programmed cell death because it involves the activation of a genetic
program for dismantling cells . . . (para.4).
However, the authenticity continues to be a matter of debate; in fact, Younkin said that“[t]here are problems looking in Alzheimer’s brains and knowing whether you arelooking at true apoptosis of is or just fragmentation of DNA that resembles apoptosis”(as quoted in Barinaga, 1998, para.5).
Mechanism of Cancer
Research of cancer also attracts a great deal of interest. People who die fromcancer are over 70 million all over the world, and in Japan, two in three people will
have a cancer and one in three people will die from cancer, so that the research ofcancer faces an urgent need to elucidate its mechanism for all of us (Tanuma, 2010,chap.4). For a long time, cancer is focused on abnormal proliferation of cancer cell only,
and researchers try to identify the genes that promote carcinogenesis action; still, it has
been revealed in recent years that cancer is the internal situation having abnormalities incancer suppressor genes; people who has cancer is defective in specific genes occurring
apoptosis to cancer cell (Thompson, 1995, p.1458-1459).

Biello (2006) also gave

clear explanation that almost all the cells except cardiac muscle cells and nerve cells inbrain commit suicide when they recognize that they are harmful or not needed (the7

Biology of Death ― Some Pros and Cons

process is known as apoptosis), “but in cancer cells this mechanism has often been
genetically disabled or otherwise broken, allowing tumors to proliferate” (para.1).
Mechanism of AIDS
According to survey (2009) done by WHO, there are 33.4 million people who
acquire Acquired immunodeficiency syndrome known as AIDS; however, there are nocurative therapies (http://www.who.int/hiv/en/). To achieve early development oftherapies, its complex mechanism become elucidating. AIDS is a disease induced byHIV infection, and specifically, T helper cells acquire HIV infection. Gougeon andMontagnier (1993) said that infected T helper cells send a signal making uninfected Thelper cell die; in other words, infected T helper cells induce apoptosis. Current
researches indicated the reason why infected T helper cells didn’t die was that HIV
blocked apoptosis (Tanuma, 2010, chap.4). All things considered, it is said that AIDS isa disease HIV-infected T helper cells forgetting apoptosis send a signal inducing
apoptosis to uninfected T helper cells.
The Possible Future
As noted above, we had found the existence of apoptosis that is programmed byspecific genes; afterwards, researchers changed in thinking; how to control apoptosis inorder to eliminate fundamental cause of disease rather than how to get rid of abnormal

8Biology of Death ― Some Pros and Conscells. In fact, many serious diseases can redefine in terms of fact that there areabnormalities of apoptosis in diseased cells. For instance, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s andamyotrophic lateral sclerosis known as ALS are caused because of occurring apoptosis
too much; on the other hand, Cancer, autoimmune diseases and viral infections arecaused because apoptosis, which should occur, is blocked. AIDS can be regarded as adisease associated with both the inhibition of apoptosis and the increased apoptosis. If
we can find chemical compounds that inhibit the signal of death sending excessively orregain the power of death in order to make diseased cells die in the future, thesediseases will be no longer diseases. This is not just a dream, I strongly said that it is afeasible dream; indeed, Lin (2008) stated that one of the polymer molecules, Flex-Het
inducing apoptosis effectively inhibits the proliferation of lung cancer cells in mice.
There is a person who approaches cancer from a different perspective. Hergenrotheralso stated that he found synthetic compound named PAC-1 having ability to activate
procaspase-3, which inhibit apoptosis in cancer cells (as cited in Biello, 2006). I think
it will be possible that we control basic function of cell, apoptosis in a positive way,
apply to curative therapy and prevent a disease in the future.
Conclusion
Protect our life from death ― for such occasions, researchers in biology-related

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field face a new challenge day in, day out; therefore, I think it would be accurate to saythat there aren’t any symptomatic therapies, and people can recover fully from all thediseases in the future. Biology of death; that is, modern development of biomedical field
will grant human wish to die a natural death; nevertheless, I can’t categorically describesuch future as good. Human beings have been conscious of the death, but we might
have entered and have to keep going the new era that we can’t feel approach of death.
Although we can tamper apoptosis, which originally gives us death, and keep awayfrom death, it doesn’t mean we can evade death. If we really seek immortality or canprolong our life programmed by genes, as much as we like in the future, we will have afeeling of emptiness toward life. I strongly emphasize that what really needed for theage to come is not the immorality but knowing the meaningfulness of limited life
through the biology of death.

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References
Barinaga, M. (1998). Is apoptosis key in Alzheimer’s disease? [Electronic version].
Science, New Series, Vol.281, No.5381, 1303-1304.
Biello, D. (2006, August). New compound causes cancer cell suicide [Electronicversion]. Scientific American. Retrieved October 30, 2010, fromhttp://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=new-compound-causes-canceCrawford, A. M., Kerr, J. f. R., & Currie, A. R. (1972). The relationship of acutemesodermal cell death to the teratogenic effects of 7-OHM-12-MBA in the
foetal rat [Electronic version]. British Journal of Cancer, Vol.26, 498-503.
Ellis, H. M., & Horvitz, H. R. (1986). Genetic control of programmed cell death in thenematode C. elegans [Electronic version]. Cell, Vol.44, 817-829.
Gougeon, M. L., & Montagnier, L. (1993). Apoptosis and AIDS [Electronic version].
Science, New Series, Vol.260, No.5112, 1269-1270.
Green, D. R., & Reed, J. C. (1998). Mitochondria and apoptosis [Electronic version].
Science, New Series, Vol.281, No.5381, 1309-1312.
Tanuma, S. (2010). 人はどうして死ぬのか [Why does human being die?]. Tokyo:Tougensya.

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Biology of Death ― Some Pros and Cons

Thompson, C. B. (1995). Apoptosis in the pathogenesis and treatment of disease[Electronic version]. Science, New Series, Vol.267, No.5203, 1456-1462.
Lin, Y. D. (2008) Enhancer binding protein homologous protein-dependent death
receptor 5 induction is a major component of SHetA2-induced apoptosis inlung cancer cell [Electronic version]. Cancer Research, 2008; 68(13):5335-5344.
Why does programmed cell death, or apoptosis, occur? Does it take place among
bacteria and fungi or only the cell of higher organisms? (1999, October).
Scientific American. Retrieved October 30, 2010, fromhttp://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=why-does-programmed-cell&page=2