Cellular Survival by Anastasis
Cells face a continual struggle between life and death, fought at the biochemical level between pro-death and pro-survival stimuli. We discovered a surprising reversibility of the cell suicide process known as apoptosis. Cells that have progressed far beyond steps previously considered to be points of no return can reverse the dying process, recover and go on to proliferate. This has both positive and negative consequences. We are testing the hypothesis that the ability of cells to return from the brink of death – which we have named anastasis (Greek: "rising to life") - serves to salvage cells that are difficult to replace such as heart muscle cells or neurons in the adult brain. Therefore, discovering how to enhance anastasis holds the potential to lead to new therapies for heart and neurodegenerative diseases. On the other hand, chemo- and radiation therapies induce apoptosis in cancer cells, which may coopt anastasis to survive, persist, and seed relapse. Therefore, identifying small molecule inhibitors of anastasis may lead to more effective cancer therapies.
