Paraptosis (from the Greek παρά para, "related to" and apoptosis) is a type of programmed cell death, morphologically distinct from apoptosis and necrosis. The defining features of paraptosis are cytoplasmic vacuolation, independent of caspase activation and inhibition, and lack of apoptotic morphology. Paraptosis lacks several of the hallmark characteristics of apoptosis, such as membrane blebbing, chromatin condensation, and nuclear fragmentation. Like apoptosis and other types of programmed cell death, the cell is involved in causing its own death, and gene expression is required. This is in contrast to necrosis, which is non-programmed cell death that results from injury to the cell.
Paraptosis has been found in some developmental and neurodegenerative cell deaths, as well as induced by several cancer drugs.
Paraptosis was not recognized as a form of cell death by the Nomenclature Committee on Cell Death in their 2018 review article. The use of this term was explicitly discouraged by the Committee in their 2012 revision[1]
- ^ Galuzzi, et al. (July 2011). "Molecular definitions of cell death subroutines: recommendations of the Nomenclature Committee on Cell Death 2012". Cell Death and Differentiation. 19 (1): 107–120. doi:10.1038/cdd.2011.96. PMC 3252826. PMID 21760595.