Morphological changes of apoptosis

Apoptosis, named as programmed cell death, represents one form of cell death and has a crucial role in the tissue homeostasis. Be­sides this, apoptosis is involved in a number of pathological conditions, such as cancer, auto-im­mune diseases and viral infections. Morphologi­cal characteristics of apoptosis are cell shrinkage, nuclear chromatin condensation and formation of apoptotic bodies. Apoptosis is genetically regu­lated process of cell death with biochemical fea­ture of enzymes activation, involving cleavage of nuclear DNA by endonuclease and responsibi­lity of transglutaminase for formation of apoptotic bodies. In multicellular organisms apoptosis serves as a clean and efficient mechanism for the elimination of unwanted cells, that may have been produced in excess, which have been da­maged or whose function is no longer required.