autophagy
|au-to-pha-gy|
🇺🇸
/ˌɔːtəˈfɑːdʒi/
🇬🇧
/ˌɔːtəˈfɒdʒi/
self-eating (cellular recycling)
Etymology
'autophagy' originates from Greek, specifically the prefix 'auto-' meaning 'self' and the verb 'phagein' meaning 'to eat'.
'autophagy' was formed from the Greek roots 'auto-' + 'phagein' and was adopted into scientific English in the mid-20th century (term popularized by Christian de Duve in the 1960s) to describe cellular 'self-eating'.
Initially it literally meant 'self-eating', but over time it evolved into a technical biological term referring to the regulated cellular process of degrading and recycling internal components.
Meanings by Part of Speech
Noun 1
a cellular catabolic process in which cells degrade and recycle their own components (organelles, proteins) through lysosomes.
Autophagy is activated during starvation to provide nutrients and maintain cellular energy balance.
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Noun 2
a physiological mechanism that helps maintain cellular homeostasis and can influence cell survival or cell death; dysregulation is implicated in diseases such as cancer and neurodegeneration.
Researchers study autophagy pathways to develop therapies for neurodegenerative diseases.
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Last updated: 2025/11/27 15:04