173A REVIEW ON APOPTOSIS & ITS DIFFERENT PATHWAYApoptosis (―normal‖ or ―programmed‖ cell death) is the physiological process by which unwanted or useless cells are eliminated during development and other normal biological processes. There are different pathways are there by which Apoptosis occurs, among these Death Receptor Mediated & Mitochondrial mediated pathways are important, but Endoplasmic Stress has also some role to induce Apoptosis. So there are three main pathway by which Apoptosis occurs. They are: Mitochondrial perturbation, Death receptor activation, Endoplasmic reticulum stress induced. In case of mitochondrial & death receptor activated pathway different caspases are the main executor proteins. Along with different caspases the other proteins like pro apoptotic Bcl 2 family; NF κb, etc are also plays important role in Apoptosis. In case of ER Stress induced Apoptosis, unfolded protein response (UPR) plays the main executing role. Here in this review all the pathways & components related to apoptosis are discussed elaborately.jdc_pharma@yahoo.inResearch372012Apoptosis,Mitochondrial perturbation,Death receptor activation, Endoplasmic reticulum stress induced,unfolded protein response,caspases,DISCJyotirmoy D. Choudhury,Suresh Kumar,Vivek Mayank,Jayesh Mehta,Dipankar BardalaiCounselor, MSD Sparsh PSP, HCL Technologies Ltd, Punjagutta, Hyderabad-500 082, India., SRF, Indian Institute of Integrative Medicine (CSIR), Jammu-180001, India.,Royal College of Pharmacy & Health Sciences, Berhampur, Orissa – 760002, India.,Department of Pharmacology, Sri Balaji College of Pharmacy, Jaipur, Rajasthan -302013, India.,Assistant Professor, Anurag Phamacy College, Kodad, Andhra Pradesh, India.