The mysterious room in Mrs Cell’s house

The 2016 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine has gone to Yoshinori Ohsumi for his discoveries of mechanisms for Autophagy, a fundamental process for degrading and recycling cellular components. The word Autophagy comes from the Greek language, where “auto” means ‘self’ and “phagein” means ‘to eat’- thus translating as ‘self-eating’.

The cell can destroy its own contents by enclosing it in membranes, forming sack-like vesicles that are transported to a recycling compartment, called the lysosome, for degradation. The lysosome contains enzymes that break down carbohydrates, proteins and lipids. While the lysosome is present in higher animals and mammalian cells, in plants, the “vacuole” carries out the functions of the lysosome.

The term “Autophagy” was coined by Christian de Duve, the scientist who also discovered the lysosome. Autophagy can occur when a cell is subjected to starvation, needs extra energy, or is infected by another organism, or even during periods of normalcy as part of the cell’s general housekeeping activities.

Yoshinori Ohsumi used baker's yeast to identify the genes that directed the process of autophagy and discovered that several proteins and protein complexes where involved in the process. His findings help us understand the adaptation to starvation or response to infection. Defects in the autophagy process are said to play a role in causing Parkinson’s disease and Type-2 Diabetes.

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Mrs. Cell was proud of her house. It would be too much to say that Mrs. Cell lived in a palace, or a bungalow that had beautiful statues and pools adorning it, but to stick to the truth, Mrs. Cell’s house was a very neat and compact one.

Just the right size, and the right shape. Mrs. Cell had a strong double layered wall all around, that made her feel even more smug about it. Her highly talented daughters made her house a lively place, and she thought the wall a good idea to keep them safe. They had very complicated names- not at all as short and sweet as Cell- but Mrs. Cell would talk of their achievements to anyone she met.

“Yes, my Mitochondria, you see— she was the one who gave us all the energy to keep going— such a ghastly incident, you know— we had quite a shock, but poor thing, she kept us motivated—” Or, it would be something like this— “Oh yes, Nucleus is my eldest daughter— the smartest of the whole lot— no one can match her brains, why, she has so much of knowledge stored—” On the whole, Mrs. Cell loved to brag, so she was usually avoided in parties, for, she would start off on her wonderful house and her wonderful daughters. Everyone was tired of hearing it.

But Mrs. Cell had a secret. Deep within her home, was a locked room. No one knew about the room, except herself and her daughters. The daughters knew of the strange room that was never opened, and questioned their mother about it. But Mrs. Cell would never reveal her secret. “None of your business!” she would snap at her daughters, “I’ll give you a good hiding if I see you go anywhere near it!

And if you want to stay alive, stay away from that room!” And the children would slink away. Sometimes, some of them saw Mrs Cell quietly putting something wrapped in plastic covers into the room, but she wouldn’t let anyone near her.

The younger ones whispered among themselves, hazarding guesses at what might be in the secret room. “I’m sure Mum’s got a treasure hidden away there”, said Ribosome, one of the younger kids. “She just doesn’t want to show us, and she’s probably dumping wads of cash there from time to time.”

“Or maybe it’s a monster”, said tall and lanky Endoplasmic Reticulum ( who was called Endo for short), trembling and sweating. “Maybe she feeds the monster every day.” It was usually Endo who gave her mother the plastic covers for the dirty work, and she had seen her putting in a few food items sometimes. She was convinced that her mother kept a pet monster, and had nightmares about the secret room.

They tried asking Nucleus, who was the eldest, as she seemed to have an inkling of what was in the secret room. But Nucleus would take on a pompous attitude and shoo them away. “Mother knows what she’s doing”, she would say. “Now off with you, or I’ll complain to Mother about you nosey parkers!”

So the door remained locked, and the room remained a mystery. As time passed, the locked room became a part of their lives that they took no notice of. Now Mrs. Cell had quite a lavish lifestyle, for she had lots of money in the bank, and all she ever did was spend the money.

She never bothered to keep a check on her accounts, and as long as she had money flowing in, she did not feel the need to worry, for money bought them all the food and clothes and other things they needed. She often bought things in excess— sometimes she used them, sometimes she didn’t— and stored the remaining or left them lying about the house.

Then one day tragedy struck. Mrs. Cell discovered that she had no more money flowing in from the bank. Her account was empty! Gloom descended on the house. Mrs. Cell was grumpy and irritable, and everyone else was upset. Nucleus gave lectures on the importance of saving and economic use of resources, while Mitochondria tried to cheer everyone up. But things went from bad to worse, and soon they were all at the point of starvation.

That day, Mrs. Cell called all her daughters. “It is time to open the locked room”, she announced gravely. “I tried not to… but, now, there is no other way.” “Look, I was right”, whispered Ribosome to a scared and whimpering Endo.

“She’s kept a treasure there and now she’s going to use it.” Mrs. Cell unlocked the door and the girls peered in. It was pitch dark inside. “Get up, you lazy creature”, shouted Mrs. Cell without stepping in. “Wake up! You’re needed!” It was Endo’s turn to whisper now.

“There, I told you, it’s a monster! Who speaks to wads of cash like that?” They heard footsteps as someone came closer to the door. There appeared another girl just like them, but disheveled and untidy. A strange smell hung about her, and the others wrinkled their noses. Mitochondria wrinkled her nose while Nucleus looked at her with distaste.

And then, Mrs. Cell announced a most astonishing thing. “This is also my daughter— that is, your sister— Lysosome.” Everyone gasped in shock, while Lysosome herself grinned at them all innocently. How could that be? The look of dismay on Nucleus’ face revealed that she too, had not known anything about it. “But…but … Mother, how could you do such a thing?

How could you lock her up like that? She is just like one of us!” Mrs. Cell looked pained and disgusted at the same time. “I shouldn’t have, but.. but… what could I do? When compared to all the rest of you, my beautiful accomplished children, this one… oh, how do I say it? How could I tell people that Lysosome … recycles garbage??” Nucleus had had enough.

“So you thought of her only now when you need her to recycle all the junk we have here, so that we don’t starve!” Nucleus raged. “Lysosome will not stay locked anymore, Mother. She is nothing less than our savior! I will not let you lock her up!” “We won’t, we won’t”, joined in the others. Mrs. Cell was quite ashamed. “I am sorry Lysosome, I treated you very badly”, she said.

“Will you help us now?” Lysosome nodded. “Get that bag of rotten onions”, Nucleus called. Lysosome carefully separated the completely rotten ones from the ones that could still be used. She did the same with the potatoes and the tomatoes and even the old clothes— repairing some, cutting bits and pieces from older dresses to make a new dress and so on.

And within no time, Lysosome managed to recycle all the extra junk and food that Mrs. Cell had hoarded up here and there, making things better for them, and they survived for days. And then, Mrs. Cell got news that she still had an account with money in it, so life was soon back to normal for them.

And Mrs. Cell’s house was beautiful again, with Lysosome getting an equally important place in her home as her sisters, as she deserved.