“…It was shown that PM induces mitochondrial-dependent apoptosis, indicated by an increased permeability of the mitochondrial membrane [123,168,175,177,183,184], increased cellular cytochrome c [177], and activation of caspase-3, caspase-9 and poly (ADP-ribose) polymerase (PARP) [123,125,133,168,175,177,[182][183][184]186]. Furthermore, PM-induced apoptosis was observed by and upregulation of apoptosis regulator BAX, a downregulation of anti-apoptotic proteins Bcl-2 and Mcl-1 [123,168,175,182], DNA fragmentation [123,128,168,175,177,[182][183][184], and the formation of apoptotic bodies [123,137,168,172,175,177,[182][183][184]186]. ER stress is also related to autophagy, and PM exposure was shown to promote autophagy in vitro.…”