I read the Wiki article. It describes autophagy in two contexts: 1. Normal operation, where proteins, organelles, and whole cells are recycled. 2. Autophagy c

I read the Wiki article. It describes autophagy in two contexts: 1. Normal operation, where proteins, organelles, and whole cells are recycled. 2. Autophagy can also result from cell starvation. Other sources ([1]) describe several methods of getting rid of or recycling cytoplasmic components: 1. Secretive--the cell kicks the garbage out. 2. Selective autophagic degregdation--the cell invites very specific components into a lysosomes, where it digests it. "For example, the cell can use selective autophagy to degrade unfavorable components, such as damaged organelles and pathogens. In these cases, the cell uses autophagy mainly for clearance (to prevent certain cellular components from causing further harm), but not for the degradation products gained from this process." Also, "One example of autophagy in clearance is the removal of oxidized biomolecules (proteins, DNA, and lipids) when the cells are under oxidative stress." Note that reducing (de-oxidizing) stuff requires an energy input. 3. "In contrast, during nitrogen or amino acid starvation, the cell needs to acquire amino acids by degrading and recycling existing materials in the cell via autophagy. In these cases, it is the recycling function that is more important to the cell, and this is the main function of autophagy that most people envision when considering this process." In section 2.1, the paper describes pathways different than those for selective degredation for non-selective degregdation. The point is that that starvation-induced autophagy does not take out the garbage. It's a desperate canabalistic triage exercise; anything not essential to keeping the lights on is shut down and digested. It would be like a lizard shedding its tail and eating it. (AFAIK that doesn't actually happen.) Eventually those perfectly-good organelles are going to need replacing. Another analogy would be a startup running out of funding. It might fire all the customer-support folks, beef up sales and marketing, throw engineering into feature-of-the-week firefighting mode, and let the tech debt pile up to astronomical proportions. Eventually, if they survive, all that will have to be replaced, at great cost and turmoil. It is not a beneficial excercise. [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9313301/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9313301/