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Autophagy is a term meaning self-eating.
Self-eating is observed in all cells as an inherent part of the program of cell lifecycle.
It consists in creation of cell vesicles at one point.
Various organelles such as mitochondria are enclosed in these vesicles,
as well as proteins and other cell components.
Then, inside a vesicle, organelles previously enclosed
are brought to lysosomes.
Lysosomes are different cellular organeles,
which contain various degrading enzymes. When two vesicles conjoin,
we observe material degradation inside the cell.
Autophagy is needed for cellular life process because there exist lesions in each cell,
either protein lesions, organelles lesions, and the cell must conduct self-cleaning.
Thus the properly functioning self-eating (autophagy) is of great importance for the cell.
It turns out that with the cellular age, autophaghy process deteriorates,
i.e. it is not properly accomplished and there emerge desposits inside cells,
damaged mitochondria or other organelles. Cell functioning in such condition is deteriorated.
Scientists began to investigate what can be done about it at the beginning of the 21st century.
What they found was that autophagy could be activated, you can tell the cell: perform self-eating, do self-cleaning.
Metformin, for instance, can be used for the purpose. It can extend lifespan of model organisms
such as Caenorhabditis elegans (free-living nematode) or fruit fly.
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