Table 1.

Characteristics of cell death by apoptosis, necroptosis, and bubbling cell death.^a

	Apoptosis	Necroptosis	Bubbling cell death
1. Membrane blebbing	Yes	No	Little or no
2. PS surface exposure	Yes	No	No
3. Plasma membrane damage	Yes	Yes	Yes
4. Cytoplasmic swelling	No	Yes	+/−b
5. Apoptotic bodies or cell fragmentation	Yes	No	No
6. Caspase activation	Yes	No	No
7. Loss of mitochondrial permeability	Yes	Yes	No
8. Nuclear bubbling	No	No	Yes
9. Nuclear condensation	Yes	No	+/−b
10. DNA fragmentation	Yes	No	No
11. Activation of DNA damage proteins	Unknown	Unknown	No
12. Key initiating event	Caspase 8 activation	Caspase-8 inactivation and RIPK1 and RIPK3 activation	Nuclear accumulation of WWOX, p53, TRAF2, NOS2, ERK, Hyal-2, and C1qBP
13. Relocation of nucleoli	No	Unknown	Release of nucleoli to the swelling nuclear bubble
14. Cytoplasmic protein aggregation	Unknown	Unknown	Yes
15. Golgi damage	Unknown	Unknown	No
16. Exosome release	No	Unknown	Yes
17. ATP requirement	Yes	No	No

^aData are collected from literature.^1–20

^bIn most cases there are no changes in cytoplasmic and nuclear volumes, whereas certain cells may undergo whole cell condensation first prior to nuclear bubbling.²⁰