"APOPTOXIN" is a combination of Apoptosis (programmed cell death) (Tydus: apoptosis) and TOXIN (toxin). It is a drug that unconditionally promotes the self-destruction of human cells. The details are unknown.

The concept of Apoptosis (cell suicide) is not very old. Traditionally, cell death is considered to be "cell necrosis", while self-death is just a form of necrosis. Cell necrosis is a word indicating the death of cells due to some external factors. For example, cuts, burns, etc., hinder cell functions, damage cell membranes, and cause internal cytoplasm, ions, etc. to be lost outside the cells. In other words, there is some kind of destructive external force that causes the cells to "accidentally die", causing swelling, fever, and even suppuration and bleeding. Such obvious phenomena have been known for a long time because they can be directly observed, and it has long been thought that this is how cells die.

In contrast, cell suicide is a phenomenon in which cells are automatically destroyed and absorbed by surrounding cells. For example, when a tadpole changes into a frog, its tail disappears. In the early stages of the formation of human fingers, the web-like part between the fingers disappears, and the cells in this part die to form the fingers. Or it is not the process of the metamorphosis stage or the generation stage of life, but it is the abnormal self-destruction of cells caused by radiation or drugs, excessive cell division, or the self-destruction of cells that have expired, which is the daily self-death of cells. phenomenon.

Unlike cell necrosis, which is greatly affected by surrounding cells, the phenomenon of self-death is very "smart". Careful analysis of the DNA in the nuclei of self-dead cells can confirm very small fragmentation changes, a phenomenon called "coagulation necrosis." This fragment is quickly absorbed by surrounding cells, and its postmortem form becomes nutrients for surrounding cells.

The interesting thing about cell death is that the "place" where the cell dies itself is determined. For example, in the above-mentioned case of the formation of fingers, the information that "there are cells that are not needed" is recognized around the dead cells. Although this process has not yet been explained clearly, it can be seen through the process of the cells in the webbed part disappearing and the fingers are formed. , conveying the message “don’t want those cells” through the cortex.

If the process becomes irreversible through processes such as radiation, the cells will judge that they are abnormal cells and cannot divide or proliferate. After making this judgment, the "death genetic gene" on the DNA in the cell will be activated, inducing the cell's self-death process. Dozens of "death genes" can now be analyzed, and research is underway to analyze their functions.

To sum up, self-death is a phenomenon in which cells choose to die at their own discretion in order to remove excessively proliferating unnecessary cells or to cause unexpected sudden mutation of somatic cells to threaten life. . Therefore it becomes "suicide".

In the current research on anti-cancer drugs, drugs that cause cell suicide are being studied. "Cancer" is a disease caused by the continuous proliferation of cells that should be eliminated through self-death. Therefore, cancer can be cured by promoting the normal process of self-death. The anticancer agents currently in use are drugs that induce cancer cells to commit suicide. However, their side effects are that they also induce the suicide of normal cells.

APTX4869 is a drug that causes explosive self-death of body cells. The side effect is that when young people (under 20 years old) take it, there are cases where the body age returns to about 10 years younger. Is such a thing even possible?

There are limits to somatic cell division in the human body. This value, called "HEAFLICK", is determined by the number of "TTAGGG" bases attached to the end of the DNA. Beyond this value, cells will no longer be able to divide and proliferate.

If APTX4869 is a drug that applies the above principles and promotes changes in bases, it should be possible to produce side effects such as "shrinking".

There is an interesting report that a "c-myc" gene has been reported as a cancer-related gene - this gene promotes cell proliferation, so this gene is activated Removing the remaining cells from the factor of proliferation is tantamount to inducing cell suicide. In other words, the process of "c-myc" promoting production is opposite to the process of cell death.

The process of APTX4869 is speculated to be: cells that are judged by their base to age and die are activated by the c-myc gene. However, after a certain degree of cell suicide, the reactivated c-myc promotes the proliferation of younger cells through base stretching - thus causing the overall rejuvenation of somatic cells, resulting in "smaller" cells. .

Of course there are still problems, and it can be said that there are quite a few.

First of all, no matter how many young cells proliferate, there will be no "rejuvenation" phenomenon. Because theoretically speaking, this cell proliferation process is the same as cancer cell proliferation. It is a disordered proliferation that will obviously produce cells that damage body functions. In the human body, corresponding command signals are needed to give the body shape and functions. It is very strange that such command signals can still be transmitted normally when cells are dying and cell proliferation is occurring in parallel.

It is incredible that the cells of the body can still function normally under such instructions.

The "Detective Conan" who has the appearance of an elementary school student should have substances like cancer cells in his body?

The second is the problem of nerve cells. Nerve cells form within months of fertilization and do not divide and proliferate thereafter, so APTX4869 has no effect. But it is a fact that an average of 100,000 brain cells die every day. This is normal "cell death", that is, cells die at the end of their life span. Of course, this process is also formed through intracellular activities, and APTX4869, which unconditionally induces cell suicide, is the only exception to this process, which is quite unnatural.

In addition to nerve cells, there are other cells that are formed after fertilization and do not divide or proliferate thereafter, which are heart cells. If cardiac cells, like nerve cells, do not undergo any changes, it would be equivalent to a 7-year-old child having a 17-year-old heart, which would cause serious damage to the circulatory system. And if the heart cells and the body undergo the same changes that degenerate to the level of a 7-year-old child, there will be a problem: it is difficult to imagine that cells that have undergone such drastic changes can still be normal. I'm just afraid of severe heart failure and death. Moreover, in the TV version of "Conan", Conan and Haibara experienced unimaginable pain (mainly manifested in skeletal changes and heart acceleration) when they used drugs several times (including changing back to their original state and disappearing and returning to childhood). and violent beating reaction), it can be seen that if a complete antidote other than APTX4869 is used multiple times, the normal body will break through the physiological limit due to multiple abnormal body reactions (such as blood vessel bursting, severe damage to heart function, etc. Phenomenon), thus completely collapsing under the powerful side effects of APTX4869's programmed cell self-death interacting with other growing cells in the body and even antagonizing the reaction, which is the result of triggering final death. But this is just conjecture. At least for now, this is still a very dangerous approach. And in the comic version of "FILE.652 What I Really Want to Ask You", Haibara also said to Conan: "Your body has already produced antibodies to this medicine. If you continue to take it, the duration will become longer and longer." "Short" Therefore, if Conan and Haibara do not find the final antidote to APTX-4869 early, I am afraid that Conan will have less and less time to use his true form in the future, and even the process of taking the real antidote will be affected.