Longevity During autophagy-literally "self-eating"-cells deliver cytoplasmic constituents, including whole organelles, to the lysosome for degradation. By Jill Adams(juadams@the-scientist.com) | May 9, 2005 Courtesy Edward T.W. Bampton, Gerry Smith, Alena...
More
Longevity During autophagy-literally "self-eating"-cells deliver cytoplasmic constituents, including whole organelles, to the lysosome for degradation. By Jill Adams(juadams@the-scientist.com) | May 9, 2005 Courtesy Edward T.W. Bampton, Gerry Smith, Alena Pance During autophagy-literally "self-eating"-cells deliver cytoplasmic constituents, including whole organelles, to the lysosome for degradation. This crucial recycling process kicks in during gross developmental changes and times of nutrient deprivation. New work may place it within cellular aging pathways as well. Characterized morphologically by Christian de Duve in the 1960s, autophagy was a natural extension of his Nobel Prizewinning work on lysosomes. Veteran researchers in a once obscure field point to the discovery of the molecular machinery a decade ago-autophagy gene products that drive the processas a boost to their own work. More recently, the linkage of one of these genes with tumorigenesis placed autophagy under a new
Less
