Apoptosis and Its Relevance to Autoimmunity

Over the last 15 years, apoptosis has become a dominant focus of medical research in the field of immunology. This publication discusses the three major areas of apoptosis research: extrinsic death receptor pathways, intrinsic cell death pathways and the mechanisms responsible for apoptotic cell clearance. Each section delineates the proteins and signal transduction pathways and describes genetic alterations that lead to autoimmune diseases. Although most cell death abnormalities have been assoc