Cell Injury Flashcards
The hall mark of reversible cellular injury is
Cellular swelling
The hallmark of irreversible cell injury is
Membrane damage
How does cellular swelling come about
Reduction in ATP reduction is activity of calcium and Na K pump and Na isn’t going out therefore water will come in therefore cellular swelling
Homesostasis
• Homeostasis is the ability to maintain internal stability in a cell in response to the environmental changes. For example, the shivering response of the body in response to cold is aimed at generating heat.
• In the cell, adaptations are reversible functional and structural responses to changes in the environment.
• Adaptations create an altered steady state which allows the cell to continue to function
• However, adaptation has its limits…
What are the cellular adaptations to these
• Increased demand
• Decreased nutrients
• Chronic irritation
• Metabolic alteration
• Cumulative sublethal injury
• Injurious stimuli
• Hyperplasia/Hypertrophy
• Atrophy
• Metaplasia
• Intracellular accumulation
• Cellular aging
• Cell injury (transient:reversible, progressive:irreversible/cell death)
What is cell injury
• Cell injury occurs at the limit of adaptation.
• Most cells are built to adapt to stressors but different
cells have different tolerance limits
• A cell’s ability to adapt depends on ____& _____
the nature of the stress (duration and aetiology)
the nature of the cell/tissue (brain/colon cells in hypoxia)
Outcomes of cellular injury
• Adaptation: The cell may adopt changes for the duration of the stress which can be expressed morphologically and then revert back to normal immediately the stress is removed.
• Intracellular accumulations: The after effects of reversible injury may persist in some cells
• Reversible injury: Mild to moderate stressors within a cell’s tolerance limit
• Irreversible injury: Persistent and severe stressors
Adaptations are reversible changes
in size, number, phenotype, metabolic activity or function of a cell in response to its environment.
Hypertrophy
Increased cell size increased organ size
• Synthesis of additional structural components.
• Physiologic: Uterine growth during pregnancy. Hormone induced
• Pathologic: Cardiac hypertrophy caused by HTN.
Mechanism of Hypertrophy
• Mechanical sensors, growth factors & vasoactive agents work together to activate signal transduction pathways e.g. PI3K & G-protein coupled receptors.
• The signal pathways then activate transcription factors which enhance synthesis of muscle proteins.
Hyperplasia
• Increase in cell numbers in response to stimuli.
• Seen in cells which have the ability to divide. May also undergo hypertrophy.
• Mechanism: Proliferation of mature cells +/- new cells from tissue stem cells e.g. regenerative liver growth
Examples of physiologic hyperplasia
• Increase functional capacity e.g. breast in pregnancy
• Compensatory increase e.g. liver regeneration after hepatectomy, bone marrow after blood loss.
Eg of pathologic hyperplasia
• Hormonal action: Endometrial hyperplasia ff increase in estrogen, Prostatic hyperplasia.
• Viral infection: Wart from papillomaviruses
• Hyperplasia is a fertile soil for cancerous proliferation e.g. endometrial carcinoma.
What is atrophy & its mechanism
Goal of atrophy
• Decrease in cell size and number resulting in reduction in size of the organ or tissue.
Mechanism:
• Decreased protein synthesis - reduced metabolic activity
• Increased protein degradation - ubiquitin/proteasome pathway.
The goal is to reduce the metabolic needs of the cell enough to ensure its survival
Atrophy