Apoptosis of mouse liver nuclei induced in the cytosol of carrot cells

Abstract

We report here the apoptosis of mouse liver nuclei induced in the cytosol of carrot cells by cytochrome c. Several typical characteristics of apoptosis, such as chromatin condensation, margination and apoptotic bodies, were detected. The result of DNA gel electrophoresis showed that DNA was degraded into nucleosomal fragments. The terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase‐mediated dUTP‐digoxigenin nick end labelling procedure was also performed to detect the breakage of 3′‐OH ends of a DNA strand. Furthermore, we found that nuclear lamins were degraded from 88 kDa and 66 kDa to 37 kDa and 47 kDa fragments. The DNA fragmentation could be inhibited by AC‐DEVD‐CHO and AC‐YVAD‐CHO. The results indicate that the apoptosis in plant cells may share some similar pathways to apoptosis in animal cells.