Abstract
Programmed cell death plays a vital role in the life of an organism. The developing organism is shaped not only by its cells, but also by the cells it removes through programmed cell death. Programmed cell death also helps regulate homeostasis in a growing number of tissues; the disruption of this pathway can prevent the culling of potentially dangerous cells (facilitating the production of cancer and autoimmune disease) or remove cells that should not die (leading to degenerative diseases and other pathologies) (1). Programmed cell death is particularly abundant in the mammalian germline. For example, over 99.9% of all primary germ cells in women fail to ovulate, instead dying by a process called atresia, which has recently been recognized to be apoptotic (2, 3). Programmed cell deaths also occur in the germlines of other species, both vertebrate and invertebrate (reviewed in 3). The broad conservation of germ cell death suggests that the molecular mechanisms controlling this process may also be similar across evolutionary lines.
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Gumienny, T.L., Hengartner, M.O. (1997). C. elegans as a Model system for Germ Cell Death. In: Tilly, J.L., Strauss, J.F., Tenniswood, M. (eds) Cell Death in Reproductive Physiology. Proceedings in the Serono Symposia USA Series. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4612-1944-6_2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4612-1944-6_2
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