What does it mean? Literally, autophagy means 'self-eating', but before you start thinking
'cannibalism'it refers to consumption at a subcellular level. In a very general sense, it is a
process by which cytoplasm is delivered to the degradative organelle—the lysosome or its
yeast equivalent, the vacuole—and degraded. There are different types of autophagy
including microautophagy and chaperonemediated autophagy, but most people use this
word synonymously with macroautophagy, as will I here.