[Detection of apoptosis]

Apoptosis or programmed cell death is the most important process in a huge number of biological processes. Its detection is very important for different fields of modern biology including embryonic development, tumour biology and numerous degenerative and immunodeficiency syndromes associated with apoptotic disorders. The mechanism of apoptosis activation is very complex and accompanied by specific morphological and biochemical cell changes that differ depending on the cell type and conditions in which the cell grows. For this reason it is essential to use several methods to detect different steps of apoptosis and thus avoid false positive or false negative results. All known and used methods have some advantages and disadvantages, but none completely meets the desired conditions. This short review presents the methods most frequently used to detect apoptosis and the biological and biochemical processes which provide the bases for these methods.