[Morphofunctional characteristics of cell death in the epidermis in gunshot damage to rat skin under experimental conditions].

Different types epidermocyte death were considered in a model of skin gunshot injury in albino rats, Using light microscopy, cytophotometry and immunocytochemistry. Epidermocyte death was characterized by various morphological changes of nuclei, spatial localization of dying cells and different intensity of cellular death, that was registered in all the experimental terms. Cell alterations of necrotic, oncotic and apoptotic types were observed. Oncotic and necrotic type keratinocyte death prevailed in early and middle stages of regenerative histogenesis due to structural and metabolic organic disorders in the skin: in later stages distinctly manifested apoptotic cell death is more possible. However it is more probable that the majority of such cells completes their cycle with necrosis. This is connected to the fact that apoptosis is an energy-dependent process as caspase-activating adapter proteins contact with mitochondrial membranes. Gunshot injury had likely caused definite changes in molecular mechanisms of proliferative processes regulation, cell differentiation and death, leading to accumulation of pathologically altered cells in the epidermis.