Autocatalytic cell death

Decreased likelihood of an autocatalytic Ca2+-mediated cell death cascade... 

Initial pre-life reproducing cellular systems emerge as a membrane-bonded vesicle incorporating autocatalytic enzyme-type catalysts. There is an ongoing metabolic process that lead to cell growth and cell multiplication. Evolutionary adaptive stematics leads to cell growth and cell death, depending on the relative value of different reaction parameters. Computational models of such processes are discussed in Sections 9.3 and 9.4. 

Cells growth is described as an autocatalytic reaction. All growth requires an initial seed or inoculum of cells. As the cells are given nutrients, they metabolize this food to make more cells. The nutrient requirements vary considerably with cell type, but all cells undergo the growth phases shown in Fig. 1—stationary, exponential, deceleration, stationary, and death phases. 

Fig. 18.14. The death receptor pathway to apoptosis. The ligand (usually a cell surface protein on another cell) binds to the death receptor, which makes a scaffold for autocatalytic activation of caspase 8. Active caspase 8 directly cleaves apoptotic execution caspases. However, the pathway also activates Bid, which acts on mitochondrial membrane integrity.

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