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 Prize-winning 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 process-as a boost to their own work. More recently, the linkage of one of these genes with tumorigenesis placed autophagy under a new spotlight and is credited with widening the investigative pool. Now scientists are finding evidence-both circumstantial and causal-that autophagy is a key mechanism in how certain manipulations, namely mutations in insulin signaling and caloric restriction, promote ...
