Programmed Cell Death (Apoptosis): Molecular Mechanisms and Implications for New Drug Discovery

Dear Colleagues,

The three main characterized forms of mammalian programmed cell death are apoptosis, autophagy and necroptosis, as a regulated necrosis. Apoptosis can be activated by a death-receptor-dependent manner (extrinsic) or by mitochondrial stimulation (intrinsic) and sustained by the activation of specific cytosolic proteases, as caspases. The dysregulation of apoptosis can result in severe pathological syndromes. Although the field continues to expand and novel mechanisms orchestrating multiple cell death pathways are unveiled, such as ferroptosis, pyroptosis, parthanatos, mitotic catastrophe, etc., different critical molecular aspects of apoptotic cell death need to be examined. In addition, the pathogenesis of many diseases is closely connected with aberrantly regulated apoptotic cell death; thus, great interest has emerged in developing novel therapeutic strategies for modulating the key molecules of life/death decisions. To date, different promising approaches have progressed to clinical testing or have been approved, albeit the discovery of novel therapeutic strategies in targeting specific apoptotic modulators remains a compelling challenge.

For this Special Issue, we invite submissions of review papers or original research articles aiming to increase the knowledge on the mechanistic profile of apoptotic cell death, as well as describing the accumulating implications related to new drug discovery.

We look forward to receive your papers.

Dr. Nunzia D’Onofrio
Dr. Elisa Martino
Guest Editors

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• programmed cell death
• apoptosis
• molecular aspects of apoptosis
• apoptosis regulation
• drug discovery
• emerging therapeutic approaches