Week 1 Lecture (Intro) Flashcards
What is etiology?
Cause of a disease
(we may not know exactly what the cause is)
What is pathogenesis?
Biochemical and molecular mechanisms of disease development
What is morphology?
Appearance of cells/tissues/organs
What are clinical features (manifestation)?
Functional consequences of morphological changes
Name the 4 reasons cells die.
- Lack of resources (hypoxia, nutrient deficiency, growth factor withdrawal)
- Exposure to toxins (toxins kill cells)
- Removal of aging/ineffective cells (specific targeting)
- Attack by immune system (infection, autoimmunity)
List 3 types of intracellular accumulations that could be signs of injury.
- Fatty deposits
- Lipofuscin
- Protein
List the modes of cell death.
- Unregulated (pathological)- necrosis
- Regulated (physiological)- apoptosis
- Alternatives- necroptosis, anoikis, autophagy
Explain necrosis
The cell breaks down/explodes and contents are released into the surrounding area. Enzymes from those cells can start chewing up other cells, damaging their neighbors.
What do necrotic cells look like?
- Loss of nuclei or pyknotic nuclei
- Breakdown of membranes (more debris present)
What are the 4 types of necrosis?
- Coagulative- loss of cell architecture, but not tissue architecture
- Liquefactive- digestion of cells results in viscous mass
- Caseous- (cheese-like) fragmented cells and granular debris surrounded by inflammation
- Fibrinoid- immune complexes and fibrin in walls of blood vessels
What is an infarction?
Blockage caused limited blood flow, which causes necrotic cell death.
What are the causes of necrosis?
Overwhelming damage due to…
- toxins
- excessive calcium
- damage to ER and mitochondria
- reactive oxygen species (ROS)–> cause oxidative damage to plasma membrane that makes it leaky and fall apart
- ischemia–> loss of blood flow/nutrients
- membrane damage–> ROS, ethanol
- nutrient withdrawal
What are the 4 specific instances of physiological cell death (apoptosis)?
- Embryogenesis- origin of the term ‘programmed cell death’
- death of specific cells at specific times (ex: digit development) - Tissues that produce new cells as part of their function- maintenance of homeostasis
- immature lymphocytes in bone marrow/thymus that fail to express useful antigen receptors
- epithelial cells in intestinal crypts - Loss of hormone-dependent tissues when hormone levels fall
- endometrial cell breakdown during menstrual cycle
- ovarian follicular atresia in menopause - Immune function
- destruction of self-reactive lymphocytes to prevent autoimmunity
- death of cells that have served their purpose–> neutrophils/lymphocytes at the end of inflammatory/immune responses
List the apoptotic initiators
- viral infections
- ionizing radiation
- chemical damage to cells
- cytokines (TNF, Fas ligand)
- mitochondrial damage
- UPR (unfolded protein response)
- calcium influx
- unresolved stress
What are the major morphological features of apoptosis?
- cell rounding/condensation
- nuclear condensation(pyknotic) /fragmentation–> visible with DAPI staining
- membrane blebbing–> small blebs form apoptotic bodies; visible with light microscopy
- formation of apoptotic bodies–> packaging of cell contents into vesicles
What are the 2 different starting points of apoptotic signaling?
- Extrinsic
- Intrinsic
Define extrinsic apoptotic signaling.
- signal coming from outside the cell
- death receptors on the plasma membrane are activated and transduce a signal through intracellular signaling pathways to activate caspases
Define intrinsic apoptotic signaling.
- mitochondrial signals induce release of pro-apoptotic proteins that activate caspases
What are caspases?
- specific proteases that disassemble the cell
- biochemical markers of apoptosis
Name some caspases.
- cysteine aspartases
- consensus sequences–> cleave after aspartic acid residue
- inflammatory–> involved in NFKB signaling
- apoptotic–> initiator caspases (activate executioner caspases), executioner caspases
What are the 4 subfamilies of the death domain superfamily and what do they do?
- Death Domain (DD)
- Death Effector Domain (DED)
- Caspase Recruitment Domain (CARD)
- Pyrin Domain (PYD)–> not included in cell death, actually an immune pathway
All 4 subfamilies are involved in assembly of protein complexes through homotypic binding
- ex: DD of a protein binds to DD of another protein, etc.
What is the advantage of having many proteins involved in the TNF extrinsic pathway?
You can use the same signal and have different effects in different cells based on which proteins are associated to form the complex.
TNF is involved in cell signaling and immune signaling; which one happens depends on what proteins are expressed by that cell.
- ex: Cell death is initiated through activation of caspase 8 or caspase 10.
What proteins have 2 domains and how is this beneficial?
Adaptor proteins
They can bind to 2 different domains and help form complexes.
How do caspases become active?
All caspases are expressed as pro-caspases.
- They undergo proteolytic cleavage of the pro- domain to form the active caspase.
Why are initiator caspases called autocatalytic?
Binding to the associated complex induces a conformational change that allows these caspases to catalyze the cleavage themselves.
How do the pro- domains of executioner caspases become cleaved?
Initiator caspase is released from the complex and cleave the pro- domains off the executioner caspases.
Where does intrinsic apoptotic signaling typically take place?
Mitochondria
- the damage can be direct to mitochondria or it can be transduced through BCL2 family members–> DNA damage or lack of survival signals
What is the Bcl-2 protein family?
- Bcl-2 stands for B cell lymphoma 2
- It is anti-apoptotic and contains 4 conserved domains (BH 1-4).
- Pro-apoptotic members members will not have BH4 domain.
Why is balance important for p53 expression?
- Lack of p53 increases cancer susceptibility
- Overexpression promotes aging
What is PUMA?
p53 upregulated modulator of apoptosis
When talking about p53 and genotoxic stress, If the protein, PIDD, has RAIDD available to it, what will this activate?
Intrinsic pathway