Research Highlight Molecular Suicide Notes: Last Call from

Dying cells actively attract professional phagocytes by sending out soluble ‘find-me ’ signals. The characterization and identification of the corresponding molecular entities have revealed that ‘find-me ’ signals come in different flavors, including peptides, proteins, lipids and complex structures, such as apoptotic microblebs. With the very recent report by Elliott et al., nucleotides as a novel nuance enter the menu. Apoptosis is the primary mechanism by which physiological cell death occurs during developmental processes and homeostatic cell turnover. Everyday this results in a considerable amount of dead cell mass that has to be removed. Otherwise, apoptotic cells proceed to the stage of secondary necrosis, losing the integrity of their plasma membrane, releasing intracellular contents and pro-moting the onset of chronic inflammatio