The Autophagy Advantage: Epigenetics, Cellular Cleanup, and Longevity
Autophagy is the eukaryotic cell’s waste management system; it collects and recycles damaged organelles and proteins. Unlike eukaryotic cells, bacteria lack lysosomes—the specialized structures that perform this task—so they rely on simpler methods to manage waste. More memorably, autophagy can be thought of as controlled cannibalism. From Greek, the word translates to “self-eating.” In mammals, it takes three principal forms: micro, macro, and chaperone-mediated (Shu, 2023). Of the three, macroautophagy is the best studied. In a healthy body, autophagy assists [more…]
