History of the events leading to the formulation of the apoptosis concept

Histological studies of ischaemic liver injury performed between 1962 and 1964 distinguished two types of cell death: classical necrosis, and a process involving conversion of scattered cells into small round masses of cytoplasm that often contained specks of condensed nuclear chromatin. Enzyme histochemistry demonstrated rupture of lysosomes in the former, but preservation of lysosomes in the latter. Similar small round masses were also observed sparsely in normal liver. Electron microscopy showed that the small round bodies resulted from cellular condensation and budding, that they were bounded by membranes and contained intact organelles, and that they were phagocytosed and digested by resident tissue cells, including epithelial cells. In work done in association with Jeffrey Searle, the process was found to occur spontaneously in a variety of malignant tumours and to be enhanced in squamous cell carcinomas of skin responding to radiotherapy. During 1971-1972, I collaborated with Andrew Wyllie and Alastair Currie while on sabbatical leave in Scotland. The newly defined type of cell death was shown to be regulated by hormones in the adrenal cortex and in breast carcinomas. Further, review of published electron micrographs of the cell death known to play an essential role in normal development revealed the same morphological pattern. We proposed that this distinctive phenomenon subserves a general homoeostatic function and suggested it be called apoptosis. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.