Cellular

A cell autophagy dataset.

Dataset Details

Life is in an equilibrium state between synthesis and degradation of proteins, and that is the difference between organisms and machines! Yoshinori Ohsumi. Ohsumi was awarded the 2016 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his discoveries of mechanisms for autophagy. “Autophagy” originates from the Greek words auto-, meaning “self”, and phagein, meaning “to eat”, and hence denotes “self-eating”. Autophagy involves pathways undertaken by animal cells to deliver cytoplasmic material to the lysosome for degradation as means of cellular regeneration. A series of molecular events culminate in the formation of the autophagosomes, their subsequent fusion with lysosomes and finally degradation of cargo in autolysosomes.

Autophagy is a dynamic process that exists in basal and activated levels. Basal autophagy, defined as autophagic activity occurring during cellular growth in nutrient-rich media, ensures maintenance of cellular quality control such as regular recycling of unwanted or damaged cellular products. On the other hand, stimulated levels exist in response to stressful conditions, such as changes in nutritional status and the presence of abnormal proteins as means to ensure protection from stress-induced damage. The hallmark of autophagy is the formation of double-membrane vesicles known as autophagosomes, which engulf cytoplasmic material and deliver the cargo to hydrolytic enzymes in lysosomes for degradation. Hence, autophagy provides building blocks for synthesis of macromolecules during limitations in nutrient supply.

Contact

Please contact steven@simula.no or vajira@simula.no for any questions regarding the dataset.

Terms of Use

The data is released fully open for research and educational purposes. The use of the dataset for purposes such as competitions and commercial purposes needs prior written permission. In all documents and papers that use or refer to the dataset or report experimental results based on the CELLULAR.