Table 1.

Major differences among apoptosis, autophagy, and necrosis.

	Apoptosis	Autophagy	Necrosis
The primary trigger of cell death	Trauma, aging, cellular stress, cell renewal, inflammation, pathogens	Nutrient deprivation, hypoxia	Trauma, infection, inflammation
Nucleus	Marked chromatin condensation, programmed nuclear fragmentation	Minor change	Minor chromatin condensation, random nuclear degradation
Mitochondrial and cell swelling	±, release cytochrome C, bcl2, and caspase cascade	±	Yes, failure ATP production, ROS production, AIF release
Cytoplasmatic vacuoles	Minor change	Yes, organelle degradation	Swelling
Caspase 3 activity	Yes	No	No
Caspase 1 activity	No	No	Yes, the pyroptosis subtype
RIP kinase	No	No	Yes
Heat shock proteins	Calreticulin	Yes	Yes
Phosphatidylserine	Yes	Yes	No
Cathepsin B, lysosomal activity	No	Yes	No
Loss of membrane integrity	No loss integrity,apoptotic bodies	No loss integrity,autophagic vacuoles	Yes, loss membrane integrity, inflammatory and cytokine content release
Response	Anti- and pro-inflammatory	Anti-inflammatory	Pro-inflammatory, affects neighboring cells

RIP, Receptor-interacting serine/threonine-protein kinase; bcl-2, antiapoptotic B-cell lymphoma 2; ATP, adenosine triphosphate; ROS, Reactive oxygen species; AIF, Apoptosis-Inducing Factor.