Autophagy contributes to lysosomal storage disorders

Degradation in the lysosome/vacuole is not the final step of autophagy. In particular, for starvation-induced autophagy it is necessary to release the breakdown products back into the cytosol. However, some researchers ignore this last step and simply refer to the endpoint of autophagy as degradation, or perhaps even cargo delivery. In many cases this is not a serious issue; however, the analysis of autophagy’s role in certain diseases makes clear that this can be a significant error.