The Scavenger

Scavenger animals and organisms help keep our ecosystem free of dead organic matter.

Just like the scavengers of the ecosystem, our body cells have 

scavengers that help keep our cells free of organic waste.

Lysosomes are vesicular organelles termed as the scavengers of the cell.

The lysosomes provide an intracellular digestive system that allows the cell to digest 
(1) damaged cellular structures 
(2) food particles that have been ingested by the cell, and 
(3) unwanted matter such as bacteria. 

The reason behind the intracellular digestive actions of these vesicular organelles is the presence of as many as 40 different hydrolytic (digestive) enzymes. Specific enzymes help digest specific components of the cell. For example, the enzyme RNAse helps digest RNA, DNAse helps digest DNA and so on.(Table of few lysosomal enzymes and its substrates)


Lysosomal Diseases
When a lysosomal enzyme is congenitally absent, the lysosomes become engorged with the material the enzyme normally degrades.This eventually leads to one of the lysosomal storage diseases.These diseases are rare, but they are serious and can be fatal.

Other points to ponder:

• Lysosomes form by breaking off from the Golgi apparatus and then dispersing throughout the cytoplasm of the cell.(Click for illustration)
• Lysosomes function well at their acidic pH contributed by the presence of acid hydrolases. This is a safety feature which makes the contents ineffective if they breakdown into the healthy cytoplasm with near neutral pH.
• The basic cause of lysosomal enzyme deficiency is genetic defect. Research studies show promising effects of gene therapy on treating certain lysosomal storage disorders such as Gaucher and Fabry diseases.
• Click to learn more about lysosomes, their digestive mechanism and the concept behind lysosomal storage disorders.