Title:
Cell Death in Cellular Society

Kohki Kawane
Faculty of Life Sciences, Kyoto Sangyo University

Abstract:
Cell death, a final but active event of cellular life plays essential roles for various developmental aspects and homeostasis in adult stage of organisms. Accumulating knowledge in this field has given us a realization that we must know about not only cell death itself but also various things accompanied with the cell death to fully understand the cell death carried out in our body that is in the context of cellular society.
We have revealed the molecular mechanism and physiological roles of DNA degradation, an event occurring with cell death. Through the study, we showed that the handling process against dead body of cells played pivotal roles for the maintenance of homeostasis. Then now we focus on a unique mode of cellular end which epithelial cells are fated to face. This type of cell death must be carried out by intercellular cooperation and communication. For example the cell that should die seems to be squeezed out from the cell layer by the function of healthy neighboring cells.
We have just started the study on the cell death in epithelial tissue by using two model systems, which are mouse ex-vivo intestinal organ culture called organoid and Drosophila midgut.
I will present our previous work concerning DNA degradation then introduce the current work on epithelial cell death as well as some research plans.