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The 2016 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
Author(s) -
Brokstad K. A.
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
scandinavian journal of immunology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.934
H-Index - 88
eISSN - 1365-3083
pISSN - 0300-9475
DOI - 10.1111/sji.12504
Subject(s) - autophagy , microbiology and biotechnology , autophagosome , vacuole , biology , lysosome , saccharomyces cerevisiae , programmed cell death , bag3 , chemistry , yeast , biochemistry , cytoplasm , apoptosis , enzyme
The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for 2016 was awarded to Yoshinori Ohsumi (Japan) for his work on autophagy. Autophagy, meaning ‘self-eating’, is the process where the cell content like large macromolecule complexes or organelles are fused with the lysosome for degradation and recycling. While other processes like the ubiquitination are usually targeting single and short-lived proteins, autophagy has the ability to target complexes of longer-lived macromolecules for recycling. Autophagy is a normal process in the cell, necessary for maintaining a healthy working cell. The autophagy process occurs more commonly in resting, stressed or starving cells, and is a survival strategy for the cell. Autophagy is tightly regulated, and cells with access to an abundance of nutrients are inhibited by the Class III PI(3) kinase – mTOR pathway.