844 - Apoptosis and programmed cell death: molecular mechanisms and applications in Biotechnology and Agriculture

In apoptosis and in programmed cell death, specific groups of cells within a larger population of living cells are triggered to die.

The main objective of the Action was to combine interrelated European expertise to understand the molecular mechanism of apoptosis and to use this increased knowledge in the development of new approaches in biotechnology, agriculture, food industry, pharmaceutical industry and novel strategies in the prevention of environmental toxicity.

One of the main achievements of the Action is that it has brought together two, so far independently working and communicating fields of apoptose research, namely the mammalian apoptosis researchers (the more established and traditional area of cell death research) and the plant apoptosis people who have started to do apoptosis research during the time frame of the Action.
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everal interesting new results came from the interactions among the laboratories of the two groups, including studies of metacaspases in plants, interrelated aspects of oxidative stress in cell death, characterisation and cloning of the plant transglutaminase.