Apoptosis

The term apoptosis is proposed for a hitherto little recognized mechanism of controlled cell deletion, which appears to play a complementary but opposite role to mitosis in the regulation of animal cell populations.

Indeed, so important is apoptosis that it is gradually becoming clear that almost all therapeutic cancer treatment works only because it induces apoptosis by alerting p53 and its colleagues.

Apoptosis is routine in developmental processes such as the removal of webbing between fingers in humans, the loss of tadpole tails in amphibians, and insect metamorphosis.