20th Anniversary of Nobel Prize 2002: Gene Regulation in Programmed Cell Death

Dear Colleagues, 

The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2002 was awarded to Sydney Brenner, Howard Robert Horvitz and John Edward Sulston for their seminal discoveries concerning “genetic regulation of organ development and programmed cell death”.

The Laureates used the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans as an experimental model system, which opened the possibility to follow cell division and differentiation from the fertilized egg to the adult and identify the key genes which regulate organ development and programmed cell death (PCD), a process used to eliminate excess cells.

In early 1960s, Sydney Brenner focused on C. elegans as a model organism of multicellular organisms that are simpler than mammals to carry out an investigation on cell differentiation and organ development for genetic analysis.

John E. Sulston mapped the cell lineage in C. elegans for the development of nervous system. This led to the groundbreaking discovery of PCD, which specifies that certain cells in the cell lineage are always destined to die; Sulston also demonstrated the first mutations of genes that participate in PCD.

H. Robert Horvitz identified the first two “death genes” in C. elegans, named ced-3 and ced-4; the prerequisite for cell death and ced-9 gene protects against cell death and showed that humans have a gene similar to one of these.

This seminal discovery led to a potential hallmark in developmental biology, which unfolded the core machinery behind the mechanisms of cell death. Over the decades, scientists have aimed to understand the regulatory forms of different PCDs and their underlying signaling network in the pathogenesis of many diseases such as cancer, neurodegeneration, developmental and inherited disorders, inflammatory diseases and during microbial infections and in aging. In the last 20 years, many new investigations have shed light on PCD-targeted therapy in order to find better treatment approaches.

This Special Issue of Cells welcomes submissions of original research articles and reviews covering unexpected findings and comprehensive approaches in the field of programmed cell death, as well as its implication in therapeutic targets and developmental process.

Dr. Suchismita Raha
Dr. Gon Sup Kim
Guest Editors

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