Could a single cell be brought to life?

Question

If a scientist is observing a single cell under a microscope, and then realizes that the cell has died, is it possible to bring that dead cell back to life?For my inquiry, let's assume that the death of the cell has occurred without disease or external circumstances. Has such process ever taken place in a lab before? Thx.

Answer 1

An interesting question. To my knowledge, it is not possible to revive a truly dead cell. Since cell death typically occurs by one of two ways:

1. Apoptosis (programmed cell death) - cells that are non-functioning (such as cancer cells) or no long needed (such as the webbing between fingers and toes) can be induced to undergo programmed cell death. Here the cell enters into a coordinated, controlled "suicide", shutting itself down until it is cleared by an immune cell. This shutdown takes a number of steps to occur, I'm not entirely certain where the "point of no return" is for an apoptotic cell, but I'm sure one exists.
2. Necrosis (accidental cell death) - this occurs when cells are too damaged to enter into apoptosis and they typically lyse (burst) open. This is undesirable, because a number of intracellular components can be cytotoxic (kills other cells - why apoptosis evolved and is the favorable option). An example of necrosis might be a virally infected cell that ruptures to release virus particles. Since this kind of death is very severe cells do not recover

There is a catch though - in scientific labs cells are frequently frozen at temperatures between -80 to -150 degrees celsius. At these low temperatures the cellular processes grind to a halt, stopping replication and freezing the cells in their cell cycle. These cells can then be thawed and induced to begin their cell cycles again