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Induced Coma, Death, and Organ Transplantation: A Physiologic, Genetic, and Theological Perspective

In the clinic, the death certificate is issued if brain electrical activity is no longer detectable. However, recent research has shown that in model organisms and humans, gene activity continues for at least 96 h postmortem. The discovery that many genes are still working up to 48 h after death que...

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Autores principales: Coliță, Cezar-Ivan, Olaru, Denissa-Greta, Coliță, Daniela, Hermann, Dirk M., Coliță, Eugen, Glavan, Daniela, Popa-Wagner, Aurel
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10059721/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36982814
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijms24065744
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author Coliță, Cezar-Ivan
Olaru, Denissa-Greta
Coliță, Daniela
Hermann, Dirk M.
Coliță, Eugen
Glavan, Daniela
Popa-Wagner, Aurel
author_facet Coliță, Cezar-Ivan
Olaru, Denissa-Greta
Coliță, Daniela
Hermann, Dirk M.
Coliță, Eugen
Glavan, Daniela
Popa-Wagner, Aurel
author_sort Coliță, Cezar-Ivan
collection PubMed
description In the clinic, the death certificate is issued if brain electrical activity is no longer detectable. However, recent research has shown that in model organisms and humans, gene activity continues for at least 96 h postmortem. The discovery that many genes are still working up to 48 h after death questions our definition of death and has implications for organ transplants and forensics. If genes can be active up to 48 h after death, is the person technically still alive at that point? We discovered a very interesting parallel between genes that were upregulated in the brain after death and genes upregulated in the brains that were subjected to medically-induced coma, including transcripts involved in neurotransmission, proteasomal degradation, apoptosis, inflammation, and most interestingly, cancer. Since these genes are involved in cellular proliferation, their activation after death could represent the cellular reaction to escape mortality and raises the question of organ viability and genetics used for transplantation after death. One factor limiting the organ availability for transplantation is religious belief. However, more recently, organ donation for the benefit of humans in need has been seen as “posthumous giving of organs and tissues can be a manifestation of love spreading also to the other side of death”.
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spelling pubmed-100597212023-03-30 Induced Coma, Death, and Organ Transplantation: A Physiologic, Genetic, and Theological Perspective Coliță, Cezar-Ivan Olaru, Denissa-Greta Coliță, Daniela Hermann, Dirk M. Coliță, Eugen Glavan, Daniela Popa-Wagner, Aurel Int J Mol Sci Review In the clinic, the death certificate is issued if brain electrical activity is no longer detectable. However, recent research has shown that in model organisms and humans, gene activity continues for at least 96 h postmortem. The discovery that many genes are still working up to 48 h after death questions our definition of death and has implications for organ transplants and forensics. If genes can be active up to 48 h after death, is the person technically still alive at that point? We discovered a very interesting parallel between genes that were upregulated in the brain after death and genes upregulated in the brains that were subjected to medically-induced coma, including transcripts involved in neurotransmission, proteasomal degradation, apoptosis, inflammation, and most interestingly, cancer. Since these genes are involved in cellular proliferation, their activation after death could represent the cellular reaction to escape mortality and raises the question of organ viability and genetics used for transplantation after death. One factor limiting the organ availability for transplantation is religious belief. However, more recently, organ donation for the benefit of humans in need has been seen as “posthumous giving of organs and tissues can be a manifestation of love spreading also to the other side of death”. MDPI 2023-03-17 /pmc/articles/PMC10059721/ /pubmed/36982814 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijms24065744 Text en © 2023 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Review
Coliță, Cezar-Ivan
Olaru, Denissa-Greta
Coliță, Daniela
Hermann, Dirk M.
Coliță, Eugen
Glavan, Daniela
Popa-Wagner, Aurel
Induced Coma, Death, and Organ Transplantation: A Physiologic, Genetic, and Theological Perspective
title Induced Coma, Death, and Organ Transplantation: A Physiologic, Genetic, and Theological Perspective
title_full Induced Coma, Death, and Organ Transplantation: A Physiologic, Genetic, and Theological Perspective
title_fullStr Induced Coma, Death, and Organ Transplantation: A Physiologic, Genetic, and Theological Perspective
title_full_unstemmed Induced Coma, Death, and Organ Transplantation: A Physiologic, Genetic, and Theological Perspective
title_short Induced Coma, Death, and Organ Transplantation: A Physiologic, Genetic, and Theological Perspective
title_sort induced coma, death, and organ transplantation: a physiologic, genetic, and theological perspective
topic Review
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10059721/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36982814
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijms24065744
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