Module 1 - Altered Cellular and Tissue Biology Flashcards
Describe cellular adaptation
- This is when cells adapt to their environment to escape and protect themselves from injury
- An adapted cell is neither normal nor injured - condition lies between these 2 states
- It is reversible changes in size, number, phenotype, metabolic activity or functions of cells
Give examples of adaptive changes in cells
- Atrophy - decrease in cells size
- Hypertrophy - increase in cell size
- Hyperplasia - increase in cell number
- Metaplasia - reversible replacement of one mature cell type by another less mature cell type or a change in the phenotype
What is Dysplasia?
- This is deranged cellular growth, not a true adaptation
- It is atypical hyperplasia
Atrophy
Decrease or shrinkage in cellular size
Where is atrophy most common?
Skeletal muscle, heart, secondary sex organs, brain
True or False: Atrophy can be physiological or pathological.
True
True or False: Atrophy is only physiological.
False
What does an atrophic muscle cell contains less of?
ER, mitochondria and myofilaments.
What causes immediate reduction of O2 consumption and amino acid uptake in muscular atrophy
Nerve loss.
What are the mechanisms of atrophy?
- Decreased protein synthesis
- Increased protein catabolism
- Ribosome biogenesis may also play a role
What is the primary pathway of protein catabolism?
UPS - ubiquitin-proteasome pathway.
An increase in proteasome activity is characteristic of what changes?
Atrophic muscle changes
Deregulation of UPS leads to what?
Abnormal cell growth and is associated with cancer and other diseases.
What accompanies atrophy due to chronic malnutrition?
It is accompanied by self eating process called autophagy that creates autophagic vacuoles.
What are autophagic vacuoles?
- membrane bound vesicles within the cells
- it contains cellular debris and hydrolytic enzymes which function to breakdown substances to the simplest unit of fat, carbs, or protein.
What happens to the levels of hydrolytic enzymes during atrophy?
It rises rapidly
What do these autophagic vacuoles do?
This is where hydrolytic enzymes are isolated to prevent uncontrolled cellular destruction. This process protects uninjured organelles from injured organelles. Theyare eventually engulfed and destroyed by lysosomes.
Give an example of granules that can persist and resist breakdown.
Examples are granules that contains lipofuscin - yellow brown pigment - usually accumulates in liver cells, myocardial cells, and atrophic cells.
Give examples of Atrophy
- Physiological - occurs in early development e.g. thymus gland undergoes physiological atrophy during childhood.
- Pathological -
- decreases in workload, pressure, use, blood supply, nutrition, hormonal stimulation, and nervous system stimulation. e.g. individuals immobilized in bed for a prolonged period of time, aging causes brain cells to become atrophic, endocrine-dependent organs can shrink as hormonal stimulation decreases.
Hypertrophy
-Compensatory increase in the size of the cell in response to mechanical stimuli (also mechanical load or stress).
-Examples are from repetitive stretching, chronic pressure or volume overload.
-This can lead to increases in size of organ.
Which are the 2 organs most prone to hypertrophy/enlargement?
Heart and kidneys
What is involved in cardiac hypertrophy?
It involves changes in signaling and transcription factor pathways which leads to increased protein synthesis - this leads to LVH.
What remains intact with physical hypertrophy?
Myocardial structure and function despite increased workload of the heart.
Give examples of physical hypertrophy.
- Normal growth and development
- moderate endurance exercise training
- pregnancy
- early phases of increased pressure and volume loading on the adult human heart
What is associated with pathological hypertrophy in the heart?
Structure and functional changes to the heart.
Pathological hypertrophy is secondary to what conditions/factors?
- HTN, coronary heart disease, problem valves.
- Aging, strenuous exercise, sustained workload, or stress
What is a key risk factor to heart failure?
Pathological hypertrophy
What are the results of the structural and functional manifestations of pathological hypertrophy?
- Interstitial fibrosis
- Cellular death
- Cardiac cardiac function
What is hyperplasia?
This is the increased number of cells resulting from an increased rate of cellular division.
When does hyperplasia occur as a response to injury?
It occurs when the injury has been severe and prolonged enough to have caused cellular death.
Hyperplasia and a. ___________ often occur together. Both take place if the cells can b.______________ DNA.
- Hypertrophy
- Synthesize
What are to types physiological hyperplasia?
- Compensatory
- Hormonal
Compensatory Hyperplasia
Adaptive mechanism that enables certain organs to regenerate
Give an example of Compensatory hyperplasia.
- Removal of part of the liver –> leads to hyperplasia of hepatocytes to compensate for the loss. Even removal of 70% of liver, regeneration is complete in about 2 weeks.
- Callus or thickening of the skin - because of hyperplasia of epidermal cells in response to a mechanical stimulus
What are induced and play a critical role in liver regeneration?
Several growth factors and cytokines (chemical messengers).
What types of cells cannot divide again once differentiated?
neurons, skeletal muscle cells.
Significant hyperplasia occurs in what areas?
- epidermal and intestinal epithelial
- hepatocytes
- bone marrow cells
- fibroblasts
Some hyperplasia is noted in bone, cartilage, and smooth muscle cells
Hormonal hyperplasia
occurs chiefly in estrogen-dependent organs, such as the uterus and breast.
Give an example of hormonal hyperplasia
After ovulation, for example, estrogen stimulates the endometrium to grow and thicken in preparation for receiving the fertilized ovum. If pregnancy occurs, hormonal hyperplasia, as well as hypertrophy, enables the uterus to enlarge
Pathological hyperplasia
abnormal proliferation of normal cells, usually in response to excessive hormonal stimulation or growth factors on target cells
What is the most common pathological hyperplasia
Most common - Pathological hyperplasia of the endometrium caused by an imbalance between estrogen and progesterone secretion, with over secretion of estrogen
Benign prostatic hyperplasia is another example which results from changes in hormone balance.
If hormonal imbalance is corrected, then hyperplasia regresses.
Dysplasia
- is not a true adaptive change
- refers to abnormal changes in the size, shape, and organization of mature cells
- atypical hyperplasia
Where does dysplastic changes often occur?
Epithelial tissue of the cervix and respiratory tract
- they are strongly associated with common neoplastic growth
- often adjacent to cancerous cells
Metaplasia
Reversible replacement of one mature cell type (epithelial, mesenchymal) by another, sometimes less differentiated cell type.
Give an example of metaplasia
The best example of metaplasia is replacement of normal columnar ciliated epithelial cells of the bronchial (airway) lining by stratified squamous epithelial cells - e.g. cigarette smoking. If stimulus is removed then can be reversed, if not, then dysplasia and cancerous transformation can occurs.
When does cellular injury occur?
When the cell is unable to maintain allostasis - a normal or adaptive steady state - in the face injurious stimuli or stress.
Injured cells may recover (reversible) or die (irreversible)
Give examples of injurious stimuli
- Hypoxia
- free radicals
- infectious agents
- physical and mechanical factors
- immunological reactions
- genetic factors
- nutritional imbalances
What are the types of injuries?
- Adaptation
- Active cellular injury
- reversible
- Irreversible
- Necrosis
- Apoptosis or programmed cellular death
- Autophagy
- Chronic cellular injury
- Accumulations or infiltrations
- pathological calcification
What are the responses Adaptation?
Atrophy, hypertrophy, hyperplasia, metaplasia
What are the responses to Active cellular injury
Immediate response of entire cell
What are the responses to Reversible?
- loss of ATP
- cellular swelling
- detachment of ribosomes
- autophagy of lysosomes
What are the responses to Irreversible?
“Point of no return” structurally when severe vacuolization of mitochondria occurs and Ca++ moves into cell
What are the responses to Necrosis
Common type of cellular death with severe cell swelling and breakdown of organelles
What are the responses to Apoptosis
Cellular self destruction for elimination of unwanted cell populations
What are the responses to autophaghy?
Eating of self, cytoplasmic vesicles engulf cytoplasm and organelles, recycling factory
What are the responses to chronic cellular injury (subcellular alterations)
Persistent stimuli response may involve only specific organelles or cytoskeleton (e.g. phagocytosis of bacteria)
What are the responses to pathological calcifications?
Dystrophic and metastatic calcifications
The extent of cellular injury depends on what factors?
- type
- state (including level of cell differentiation and increased susceptibility to fully differentiated cells.)
- adaptive processes of the cell
- as well as the type, severity, and duration of the harmful stimulus
Give an example of a modifying factor that can profoundly influence the extent of injury?
Nutritional Status
Yes or No: Would 2 individuals exposed to an identical stimulus incur the same degree of cellular injury?
No
What are the biochemical mechanisms involved with cellular injury and death?
- ATP depletion
- Mitochondrial damage
- Oxygen and oxygen free derived free radical membrane damage
- Protein folding defects
- DNA damage defects
- Calcium level alterations
Give examples of common forms of cellular injury?
- hypoxic injury - most common
- free radicals and reactive oxygen species injury
- chemical injury
Describe ATP depletion
- Loss of mitochondrial ATP and decreased ATP synthesis
- results include cellular swelling, decreased protein synthesis, decreased membrane transport, and lipogenesis –> all changes that contribute to loss if integrity of plasma membrane
Describe ROS - reactive oxygen species
Lack of oxygen is key in progression of cellular injury in ischemia (reduced blood supply); activated oxygen species (ROS, O2*–, H2O2, *OH) cause destruction of cell membranes and cell structure
Describe Ca++entry
Normally intracellular cytosolic calcium concentrations are very low; ischemia and certain chemicals cause an increase in cytosolic Ca++ concentrations; sustained levels of Ca++ continue to increase with damage to plasma membrane; Ca++ causes intracellular damage by activating a number of enzymes
Describe mitochondrial damage
Can be damaged by increases in cytosolic Ca++, ROS; two outcomes of mitochondrial damage are loss of membrane potential, which causes depletion of ATP and eventual death or necrosis of cell, and activation of another type of cellular death (apoptosis)
Describe Membrane damage
Early loss of selective membrane permeability found in all forms of cellular injury, lysosomal membrane damage with release of enzymes causing cellular digestion
Describe Protein misfolding, DNA damage
Proteins may misfold, triggering unfolded protein response that activates corrective responses; if overwhelmed, response activates cell suicide program or apoptosis; DNA damage (genotoxic stress) also can activate apoptosis
What is the single most common cause of cellular injury?
Hypoxia
What are the main consumers of Oxygen?
Mitochondria
________ are also possible hypoxia signalling molecules.
ROS
What is the most common cause of hypoxia?
Ischemia
What is somatic death?
Somatic death is the death of the whole person
How long after death does post mortem changes appear?
Within minutes, is diffuse and does not involve components of the inflammatory response.