Syllabus
1. The concept of apoptosis / programmed cell death, its importance, historical and evolutionary aspects.
Overview of principles and signaling pathways, differences between different types of cell death 2. Caspases and other proteases: initiators and effectors of apoptotic signaling, their activation and regulation 3.
Mitochondria and other organelles in apoptosis; proteins from the Bcl-2 family. 4. Intracellular induction of apoptosis, stress response, tumor suppressor p53. 5.
Extracellular induction of apoptosis (death receptors, immune cells,…) 6. Regulated necrosis and other mechanisms of regulated cell death. 7.
Final cell destruction and dead cell removal. 8. Summary of activation and regulation of cell death in mammalian cells in vitro and in vivo. 9.
Regulated cell death in other vertebrates and invertebrates. 10. Cell death in unicellular organisms and in plants. 11.
Physiology and pathophysiology of cell death; methodology of its detection and quantification.
Annotation
The course of lectures is principally focused on familiarization with the mechanisms of activation and regulation of cell death (apoptosis, regulated necrosis, etc.) and related events. In particular, mammalian (human or mouse) cells are model cells / organisms for analyzing these mechanisms.
In addition to mammalian cells, the mechanisms of regulated cell death are presented in other vertebrates, invertebrates and unicellular organisms, and plants. Last but not least, the association between regulated cell death and physiological or pathophysiological states and manifestations of the organism is pointed out.