Background/objective: Several drugs have recently been demonstrated to successfully treat diseases by activating cytolytic or suicidal cell molecular machineries. On the other hand, in healthy subjects cytolytic and suicidal machineries are able to maintain tissue homeostasis, thus preventing the onset of a number of diseases. These machineries include both the cytolysis, exerted by cytotoxic T lymphocytes, of cells 'altered' by infectious or neoplastic antigens (altered cell cytolysis [AlCC]), and the suicide of antigen-activated T cells when in antigen-excess (activated cell suicide [AcCS]).
Results/conclusions: These drugs may therefore, in our opinion, restore AlCC or AcCS, and, as aconsequence, favour disease healing. Thus, such a restoration could prove helpful for treating disorders caused by failure of such machineries.