Fig. 1.

Correlation between cell size and autophagy. (A) Bax^−/−, Bak^−/− mouse bone marrow-derived cells that were cultured in the presence (left) or absence (right) of the growth factor interleukin 3 for six weeks. Of note are the reduced cytoplasmic volume and abundant autophagosomes (arrows). Image reprinted from Lum et al., 2005 with permission from Elsevier (Lum et al., 2005). (B) Camera lucida drawings of sectioned larval fat body cells from fed (left) or three-day starved (right) Drosophila larvae. Dark circular structures represent lipid droplets. Image reprinted from Butterworth et al., 1965 with permission from John Wiley and Sons (Butterworth et al., 1965). (C) Histogram indicating cell size (forward light scatter) of Atg5^−/− mouse embryonic fibroblasts carrying a doxycycline-repressible Atg5 transgene. Cells were starved (ST+, right) in amino-acid-free DMEM or incubated in normal cell culture media (ST-, left), in the presence or absence of doxycycline (DOX). Repression of Atg5 leads to increased cell size under starvation conditions. Image reprinted from Hosokawa et al., 2006 with permission from Elsevier (Hosokawa et al., 2006).