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Abstract
The human body generates 10-100 billion cells every day, and the same number of cells
die to maintain homeostasis in our body. Cells infected by bacteria or viruses also
die. The cell death that occurs under physiological conditions mainly proceeds by
apoptosis, which is a noninflammatory, or silent, process, while pathogen infection
induces necroptosis or pyroptosis, which activates the immune system and causes inflammation.
Dead cells generated by apoptosis are quickly engulfed by macrophages for degradation.
Caspases are a large family of cysteine proteases that act in cascades. A cascade
that leads to caspase 3 activation mediates apoptosis and is responsible for killing
cells, recruiting macrophages, and presenting an "eat me" signal(s). When apoptotic
cells are not efficiently engulfed by macrophages, they undergo secondary necrosis
and release intracellular materials that represent a damage-associated molecular pattern,
which may lead to a systemic lupus-like autoimmune disease.
[1
]Laboratory of Biochemistry and Immunology, World Premier International Research Center
Initiative Immunology Frontier Research Center, Osaka University, Osaka 565–0871,
Japan;