Programmed cell death (PCD) is a cellular suicide process, commonly found in organisms, that is important for elimination unnecessary and damaged cells during development and adaptation to abiotic and biotic environmental stresses. PCD is a complex and precise, genetically controlled cellular process, in opposite to non-programmed death, necrosis, in which cells are "killed" by strong abiotic factors. This article shows: the occurrence of PCD during animals and plants ontogenesis, classification of cell death types in these organisms with description of autophagy, apoptosis and necrotic cell death and with discussion on plant cell death by apoptosis. The role of Bcl-2 protein and other proteins involved in the regulation of apoptosis induction and detection in the plant's (whose genomes do not encode these proteins) proteins of analogous function is also discussed. The paper also presents the effects of the expression of animals pro- and anti-apoptotic genes transformed into yeast and plants, and the use of transformed yeast as model to identify in cDNA libraries animal and plant genes involved in regulation of the induction and course of the PCD.