IS APOPTOSIS INDUCED BY CELLULOSE MEMBRANES AN IRREVERSIBLE PROCESS?
The results obtained demonstrated that mononuclear cells received a death signal after interacting with the cellulose membrane. However, these data do not permit us to confirm whether the spontaneous apoptosis observed in such cells is a consequence of a specific signal or the activation of physiologic apoptosis. In order to explore these two possibilities, we exploited an inherent characteristic of the mononuclear cell, the fact that such cells live longer when they are stimulated by proinflammatory cytokines or bacterial proteins such as LPS27,28. Both the spontaneous apoptosis observed in the cells of patients dialyzed using cellulose membranes and that induced in vitro in cells from healthy subjects after contact with these membranes were prevented when the cells were stimulated with IL-1 or LPS, contradicting the hypothesis of a specific death signal.Recent studies have demonstrated that somatic cells subjected to repeated activation suffer a process of accelerated senescence29. T
