Autophagy Revisited

Even healthy cells require this catabolic process.

The autophagy process degrades and recycles malformed proteins or worn-out organelles using lysosomal machinery. In the past, autophagy has been shown to act only as an adaptive response to extreme physiologic conditions, such as nutrient deprivation. Then, in 2006, two teams of Japanese researchers published papers on autophagy in Nature - both Hot Papers this month - showing that autophagy is important not only in stressed cells, but also is essential to the health and development of normal cells.1

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