Apoptosis: molecular mechanism for physiologic cell death.

Molecular biology is fast becoming the wave of the future in research as well as in the clinical laboratory. This trend toward determining cell function at this level is opening up doors to new techniques in evaluating and diagnosing such diseases as AIDS and cancer. This article focuses on apoptosis or programmed cell death, its morphological characteristics, its comparison to necrosis, its occurrence in development and homeostasis of multicellular organisms, its genetic regulation, and its involvement in diseases.