Figure 7.

Function of LEs. (A) Cargo that needs to degraded is endocytosed and sorted into ILVs. This can be also used to silence signalling from receptors, normally exposed to the cytosol. (B) Microautophagy is used to bring cytosolic contents into LEs. (C) ILVs can be secreted as exosomes to the extracellular environment upon fusion of LEs with the plasma membrane. (D) ‘Backfusion’ of ILVs with the limiting membrane of LEs allows retrieval of membrane cargo or release of ILV contents into the cytosol.