Kengo Nozaki and Ed Miao have published a review in Trends in Cell Biology (September 2023) where they propose a new way of thinking about cell death.
Kengo and Ed propose that after cells initiate regulated cell death, they simultaneously initiate “bucket lists” of tasks which must be completed before a cell loses all functionality. For example, intestinal epithelial cells must complete the bucket list of tasks that accomplish extrusion from the monolayer. If they fail to complete these tasks before the cell dies then this can cause excessive tissue damage. Cells must put their affairs in order before they die.
See Figure 1 below from the review article that delineates the concepts.
