Lysosomes digest material. Step one shows material entering a food vacuole through the plasma membrane, a process known as endocytosis. In step two a lysosome with an active hydrolytic enzyme comes into the pictures as the food vacuole moves away from the plasma membrane. Step three consists of the lysosome fusing with the food vacuole and hydrolytic enzymes entering the food vacuole. In the final step, step four, hydrolytic enzymes digest the food particles.[5]
Lysosomes are degradative organelles that act as the waste disposal system of the cell by digesting used materials in the cytoplasm, from both inside and outside the cell. Material from outside the cell is taken up through endocytosis, while material from the inside of the cell is digested through autophagy.[6] The sizes of the organelles vary greatly—the larger ones can be more than 10 times the size of the smaller ones.[7] They were discovered and named by Belgian biologist Christian de Duve, who eventually received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1974.
Lysosomes contain more than 60 different enzymes, and have more than 50 membrane proteins.[8][9] Enzymes of the lysosomes are synthesized in the rough endoplasmic reticulum and exported to the Golgi apparatus upon recruitment by a complex composed of CLN6 and CLN8 proteins.[10][11] The enzymes are transported from the Golgi apparatus to lysosomes in small vesicles, which fuse with larger acidic vesicles. Enzymes destined for a lysosome are tagged with the molecule mannose 6-phosphate, so that they are properly sorted into acidified vesicles.[12][13]