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Nature Immunology 9, 1210–1212 (1 November 2008) | doi:10.1038/ni1108-1210

IFN-|[gamma]| and self-absorbed CD4+ T cells: a regulatory double negative

David Hildeman & Edith Janssen

Autophagy, an internal cellular degradation process activated in response to nutrient or growth-factor starvation, begins with the formation of an 'autophagosome', an intracellular membrane that engulfs portions of cytoplasm. After fusion with late endosomes or lysosomes, the contents of the fused autophagolysosome are degraded and recycled for the anabolic needs of the cell.