Genetics of Apoptosis

10.

Perspectives

The finding of factors relevant to apoptosis in animals and yeast and even lower
eukaryotes suggests that apoptosis developed in unicellular organisms long before the
evolutionary separation between fungi, plants, and metazoan animals occurred.
In the near future, yeast studies promise the identification of more components of
the basic, evolutionarily ancient stages of apoptosis. Yeast offers the opportunity to
screen easily for substances acting directly on these basic components without
diversion by a complex upstream network. This may result in the discovery of
‘universal’ activators or inhibitors of apoptosis that would be helpful for research, and
potentially for medical applications as well.

150 GENETICS OF APOPTOSIS