Table 1. Comparison of apoptosis and necroptosis ^{49, 54} .

Features	Apoptosis	Necroptosis (a major form of regulated necrosis)
Cytoplasmic shrinkage	Yes	No
Chromatin condensation	Yes	Mild
Nuclear fragmentation	Yes	No
Membrane blebbing	Yes	No
Shedding of apoptotic bodies	Yes	No
Swelling of organelles	No	Yes
Lysosomal membrane permeabilization	No	Yes
Plasma membrane permeabilization	No	Yes
Caspase activation	Yes	No
Key regulators in pathway	Bid, Bax/Bak; cytochrome c; Apaf-1; caspase-9; caspase-8/10; FADD; RIP1	RIP1, RIP3, MLKL
Executors of cell death	Caspase-3; caspase-7	MLKL trimer and ion channels formation
Inhibitors	zVAD	Nec-1 (RIP1 kinase inhibitor); GSK-843, GSK-872 and GSK-840 (RIP3 kinase inhibitors); NSA (MLKL inhibitor)
Physiological and pathological roles	Controlling cell numbers during embryogenesis and homeostasis, immune regulation, and pathogen defense. Inhibition of apoptosis may result in cancers, autoimmune diseases, inflammatory diseases, and viral infections	Virus infection, TNF-mediated hypothermia and systemic inflammation, ischemic reperfusion injury, neurodegeneration, Gaucher's disease, progressive atherosclerotic lesions, and cancers

Abbreviations: Nec-1, necrostatin-1; NSA, necrosulfonamide

Note: Necroptosis is a major and most well-studied form of regulated necrosis, but regulated necrosis may also include other forms, such as parthanatos, oxytosis, ferroptosis, NETosis, pyronecrosis, and pyroptosis²