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Analysis of apoptosis, or "programmed cell death", in which external
factors can cause cells to become committed down a "suicide" pathway leading
ultimately to cell death, increasingly has become a major application of
flow cytometry. During this significant biological process, cellular DNA
becomes fragmented; this low molecular weight DNA can leak out from the
cells and be measured using flow cytometric techniques such as DNA labelling
and enzyme-based assays. The purpose of this section is to provide a practical
source of material relating to the flow cytometric analysis of this important
phenomenon, which has implications for many areas of biology, including
cell regulation and tumour proliferation.
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