title: How to die chemically? Whole body apoptosis.
abstract: What would you do if your body decided to die when you were not ready? It appears that some biological program can shut down all bodily functions, in much the same way as apoptosis does so at the cellular level. Pacific salmon and annual cicada die after reproduction. How do they die chemically? Their programmed death after reproduction should have chemical signals. Similarly, pro-inflammatory cytokines, particularly tumor necrosis factor-α and interleukin-1β, could induce death in mammals. Acute massive production of them in sepsis and chronic tiny production in aging could lead to death. Thus, the mechanism of the whole body suicide program could be determined and some people could be rescued from this type of death by elucidating the death program. I propose that the concept of whole body apoptosis, defined as programmed whole body death, be adopted by scientific community.
authors.affiliation: Molecular Inflammation Research Center for Aging Intervention (MRCA), College of Pharmacy, Pusan National University, 63 Beon-gil 2, Busandaehag-ro, Geumjeong-gu, Busan 609-735, Republic of Korea. imds@pusan.ac.kr
authors.forename: Dong-Soon
authors.initials: DS
authors.lastname: Im
mesh_terms: D000375:Aging / Q000473:pathology; D000818:Animals; D017209:Apoptosis / Q000502:physiology*; D051017:Apoptosis Regulatory Proteins / Q000737:chemistry / Q000502:physiology*; D016207:Cytokines / Q000737:chemistry / Q000502:physiology; D003643:Death; D006801:Humans; D007249:Inflammation / Q000473:pathology; D018836:Inflammation Mediators / Q000737:chemistry / Q000502:physiology*; D053583:Interleukin-1beta / Q000737:chemistry / Q000502:physiology; D014409:Tumor Necrosis Factor-alpha / Q000737:chemistry / Q000502:physiology
chemical_list: D051017:Apoptosis Regulatory Proteins; D016207:Cytokines; D018836:Inflammation Mediators; D053583:Interleukin-1beta; D014409:Tumor Necrosis Factor-alpha