"Autoschizis" is a term derived from the
Greek
Greek may refer to:
Greece
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group.
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family.
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
αὐτο- ''auto-'', meaning "self", and σχίζειν ''skhizein'', "to split". It was introduced in 1998 to describe a novel form of
cancer cell
Cancer cells are cells that divide continually, forming solid tumors or flooding the blood with abnormal cells. Cell division is a normal process used by the body for growth and repair. A parent cell divides to form two daughter cells, and these ...
death characterized by a reduction in cell size that occurs due to the loss of
cytoplasm
In cell biology, the cytoplasm is all of the material within a eukaryotic cell, enclosed by the cell membrane, except for the cell nucleus. The material inside the nucleus and contained within the nuclear membrane is termed the nucleoplasm. ...
through self-excision (the cell splits open) without the loss of cell
organelles
In cell biology, an organelle is a specialized subunit, usually within a cell, that has a specific function. The name ''organelle'' comes from the idea that these structures are parts of cells, as organs are to the body, hence ''organelle,'' th ...
,
morphologic degradation of the
cells nucleus and
nucleolus
The nucleolus (, plural: nucleoli ) is the largest structure in the nucleus of eukaryotic cells. It is best known as the site of ribosome biogenesis, which is the synthesis of ribosomes. The nucleolus also participates in the formation of s ...
without the formation of
apoptotic bodies and destruction of the
cell membrane
The cell membrane (also known as the plasma membrane (PM) or cytoplasmic membrane, and historically referred to as the plasmalemma) is a biological membrane that separates and protects the interior of all cells from the outside environment (the ...
. The cell death results from
karyorrhexis
Karyorrhexis (from Greek κάρυον ''karyon'', "kernel, seed or nucleus", and ῥῆξις ''rhexis'', "bursting") is the destructive fragmentation of the nucleus of a dying cell whereby its chromatin is distributed irregularly throughout the ...
and
karyolysis
Karyolysis (from Greek κάρυον ''karyon—''kernel, seed, or nucleus), and λύσις ''lysis'' from λύειν ''ly