Molecular signaling of CD95- and TNFR-mediatedapoptosis in Naïve and various memory subsets of T-cells

Abstract

There are multiple ways for cells to die, including necrosis, apoptosis, and autophagy. Apoptosis or programmed cell death or suicidal cell death is a physiological form of cell death, which is critical in cellular homeostasis. Apoptosis occurs in almost all cell types in the body and begins as early as eight cell embryo stage and continues throughout the lifespan of the organism, albeit at different rate. There are multiple roads to apoptotic cell death, including extrinsic or death receptor-mediated and intrinsic, which may be mediated via mitochondrial pathway and the endoplasmic reticulum pathways. Most of apoptotic cell death are mediated by serine proteases, the caspases, which cleave a number of target substrates, including enzymes, transcription factors, and structural proteins. However, apoptosis may also be mediated by caspase-independent pathways. In this review we will discuss molecular signaling and regulation of death receptor pathways, particularly CD95- and TNFR-mediated apoptosis, in naïve and various memory subsets of T-cells, and changes during human aging.