MoD S1 - Cell injury Flashcards
List the main causes of cell injury
- Hypoxia
- Micro-organisms
- Immune response
- Physical agents
- Chemical agents
- Dietary insufficiency or excess
What is hypoxia?
Oxygen deprivation resulting in decreased aerobic oxidative phosphorylation
How do different cells respond to hypoxia?
Fibroblasts can survive for hours whereas neurones can tolerate only minutes before suffering injury and subsequent death
What are the causes of hypoxia?
Hypoxaemic‐ arteriole oxygen content is low
Anaemic‐ decreased ability of haemoglobin to carry oxygen
Ischaemic‐ interruption of oxygenated blood supply
Histiocytic‐ cannot use oxygen in cells due to disabled oxidative phosphorylation enzymes
How can immune mechanisms result in cell injury?
- Hypersensitivity reactions where host tissue is damaged secondary to vigorous immune response
- Autoimmune reactions where immune system fails to distinguish self from non‐self
What are the main targets for cell injury?
Membrane, Nucleus, Mitochondria, Proteins (both structural and enzymes)
Outline the steps of hypoxic cell injury
- Cell deprived of oxygen
- Mitochondrial ATP production stops
- ATP‐driven membrane ionic pump stops
- Sodium and water seep into cell
- Cell swells and plasma membrane is stretched
- Glycolysis enables cell to survive for a while
- Cell initiates heat shock response
- pH drops as lactate accumulates from glycolytic ATP production
- Calcium enters cell (changes now become irreversible)
- Calcium activates phospholipases, endonucleases, proteases and ATPase
- ER and organelles swell
- Enzymes leak out of lysosomes and attack cytoplasmic components
- Cell membrane is damaged and starts to show blabbing
- Cell dies
What is blebbing in cell injury?
Cell membrane separates from the cytoskeleton
What is ischemic reperfusion injury?
Blood flow returned to tissue which isn’t yet necrotic causing excess free radical production, increased complement proteins and activation of the complement pathway and increased neutrophils causing inflammation
What is chemical injury?
Chemical binds to a cell component e.g. cyanide binding to cytochrome oxygenase blocking oxidative phosphorylation
When are free radicals produced in cells?
- Excess oxygen
- Cellular aging
- Ischemic‐reperfusion injury
- Chemical and radiation injury
How are hydroxyl radicals produced in cells?
Lysis of water, Fenton and Harber‐Weis reactions
What are the three main mechanisms of defence against free radicals within cells?
Enzymes‐ superoxide dismutase, catalase and peroxidase
Free radical scavengers‐ vitamins A, C and E and glutathione
Storage proteins‐ sequester transition metals in the extra cellular matrix
What test can be used to identify cell death?
- Dye exclusion test
- Based on functional not morphological criteria
What morphological changes can be seen in injured cells under a light microscope?
Cytoplasmic:
● reduced pink staining due water moving in (reversible)
● become intensely eosinophilic as proteins aggregate together (irreversible)
Nuclear:
● chromatin clumping (reversible)
● pyknosis, karryohexis, karryolysis (irreversible)
Abnormal cellular accumulations
What reversible changes to injured cells can be seen under an electron microscope?
- Swelling due to Na/K pump failure
- Cytoplasmic blebs
- Clumped chromatin due to changes in pH
- Ribosomes detach from ER due to lack of ATP
What irreversible changes to injured cells can be seen under an electron microscope?
- Increased cell swelling
- Amorphous densities in swollen mitochondria
- Swelling and rupture of lysosomes
- Lysis of ER membrane
- Nuclear changes‐ pyknosis, karryohexis, karryolysis
Define oncosis
Cell death with swelling, it is the spectrum of changes that occur prior to death in cells injured by hypoxia
Define apoptosis
Cell death with shrinkage, induced by a regulated intracellular programme where a cell activates enzymes that degrade its own and DNA and proteins
Outline the main steps in the initiation of apoptosis
Intrinsic activation‐ increased permeability of mitochondria, release of cytochrome C, binds to caspase 9 and APAF‐ 1 to form an apoptosome, activation of various downstream caspases
Extrinsic activations‐ death ligands such as TRAIL bind to receptors such as TRAIL‐R and activate caspases independent of mitochondria
Outline the main steps of the execution stage of apoptosis
Caspases are the effector molecules of apoptosis and when activated are proteases that break down the cytoskeleton and initiate degradation of DNA
Outline the main steps of the degradation stage of apoptosis
Cell breaks down to form membrane bound fragments called apoptotic bodies which have antigens present on their surface, marking them for phagocytosis