title: Morphological, biochemical, and flow cytometric assays of apoptosis.
abstract: As programmed cell death (PCD), or apoptosis, has emerged as an important regulator of development and homeostasis in multicellular organisms, methods to quantify apoptosis and to distinguish it from necrosis have been developed. Necrosis refers to the morphology usually associated with accidental cell death, while apoptosis is seen when cell death is programmed or physiologically regulated. This unit presents a set of assays for these purposes, many of which are technically very simple. Featured in this unit is the TUNEL method of detecting cells that exhibit DNA fragmentation, which can also be performed on tissue sections to locate apoptotic cells in situ.
authors.affiliation: National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Bethesda, Maryland, USA.
authors.forename: D
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Martin
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Lenardo
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D017209:Apoptosis; D001669:Biochemical Phenomena; D001671:Biochemistry; D048430:Cell Shape; D004247:DNA / Q000235:genetics; D005434:Flow Cytometry / Q000379:methods*; D005456:Fluorescent Dyes; D006801:Humans; D017403:In Situ Hybridization
chemical_list: D005456:Fluorescent Dyes; D004247:DNA