Alzheimer's disease, the most common cause of dementia among the elderly, is characterized by plaques and tangles in the brain, with most efforts at finding a cure focused on these abnormal structures. But a University of ...
Aug 12, 2019
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(Medical Xpress)—The motivation by fear, anger, and love to preserve self, kin, and others perches near the pinnacle of our existence. Triumph in the face of a seemingly insurmountable medical adversity by the creation ...
Many cancers become especially dangerous only when they metastasize from their site of origin to faraway tissues such as lung, brain or bone. Now, a University of Colorado Cancer Center study published today in the Proceedings ...
Aug 20, 2018
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Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have obtained new evidence that at least some persistent stuttering is caused by mutations in a gene governing not speech, but a metabolic pathway involved ...
Nov 22, 2011
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A new combination of drugs could fix the broken lysosomal enzyme pathway in Parkinson's disease-afflicted brain cells, according to a Northwestern Medicine study published in Neuron.
Nov 24, 2021
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Northwestern Medicine investigators have discovered how a gene mutation results in buildup of a toxic compound known to cause Parkinson's disease symptoms, defining for the first time the mechanism underlying that aspect ...
Feb 5, 2018
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Lysosomes, the "garbage disposal" systems of cells, are found in great abundance near the amyloid plaques in the brain that are a hallmark of Alzheimer's disease. Scientists have long assumed that their presence was helpful—that ...
Jun 30, 2015
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The discovery of a new way to target and treat the leading genetic contributor to Parkinson's may open the way for a potential new clinical treatment.
May 3, 2019
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A University of Michigan cell biologist and his colleagues have identified a potential drug that speeds up trash removal from the cell's recycling center, the lysosome.
Mar 13, 2012
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(Medical Xpress)—In the epic series Star Wars, the mysterious energy field known simply as, the Force, was communicated by microscopic endosymbionts known as midichlorians. Their real world counterparts, the mitochondria, ...
Lysosomes are cellular organelles that contain acid hydrolase enzymes to break down waste materials and cellular debris. They are found in animal cells, while in yeast and plants the same roles are performed by lytic vacuoles. Lysosomes digest excess or worn-out organelles, food particles, and engulf viruses or bacteria. The membrane around a lysosome allows the digestive enzymes to work at the 4.5 pH they require. Lysosomes fuse with vacuoles and dispense their enzymes into the vacuoles, digesting their contents. They are created by the addition of hydrolytic enzymes to early endosomes from the Golgi apparatus. The name lysosome derives from the Greek words lysis, to separate, and soma, body. They are frequently nicknamed "suicide-bags" or "suicide-sacs" by cell biologists due to their role in autolysis. Lysosomes were discovered by the Belgian cytologist Christian de Duve in the 1960s.
The size of lysosomes varies from 0.1–1.2 μm. At pH 4.8, the interior of the lysosomes is acidic compared to the slightly alkaline cytosol (pH 7.2). The lysosome maintains this pH differential by pumping protons (H+ ions) from the cytosol across the membrane via proton pumps and chloride ion channels. The lysosomal membrane protects the cytosol, and therefore the rest of the cell, from the degradative enzymes within the lysosome. The cell is additionally protected from any lysosomal acid hydrolases that drain into the cytosol, as these enzymes aren't pH-sensitive and function as well in the alkaline environment of the cytosol.
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