Signal antonymy: a mechanism for apoptosis induction

The unfolding of the developmental programme and the organization of multicellular organisms require that cell numbers in differentiating and differentiated tissues are regulated. This is done by two distinct processes : control of cell proliferation and differentiation to a post-mitotic stage; and control of survival in post-mitotic cells. It is argued that elimination of cells by programmed cell death (PCD), which operates in both cases, is regulated by distinct mechanisms: PCD in post-mitotic cells corresponds to 'death-by-default' of (counter apoptotic) survival signals (Raff, 1992), while apoptosis in cycling cells, or in resting cells submitted to proliferative signals, results from antonymy in signalling pathways, i.e. a situation where a cell simultaneously engages into incompatible pathways of proliferation and cell cycle arrest. Antonymy arises in cells irreversibly committed to either proliferation or arrest and responding to a contradictory signal. In turn, the irreversible commitment arises by uncoupling of signal transduction from co-ordinated pathways (as in transformed cells with constitutive expression of growth-associated genes or in terminally differentiated post-mitotic cells).