Blog 5 Advanced Organelles

Advanced Organelles - Lysosome

A lysosome contains digestive enzymes necessary for breaking down materials within a cell. Lysosomes are advanced organelles that exist in animal cells. They are not in red blood cells and their function and form are very similar to a vacuole. The role of a lysosome is to clean up the "garbage" of the cell. So basically what a lysosome does is break down the celluar waste, digesting the waste inside of the cytoplasm and then dispose of the waste inside of the cell. While their role is to clean up the cell they also help to maintain cellular homeostasis, cell signaling, energy metabolism, and plasma membrane repair. Lysosomes also have different sizes, they can be big or small. Inside of a lysosome their contains about 50 different enzymes that help to hyrdrolyze proteins, DNA, RNA, polysachharides, and lipids. Lysosomes play a role in endocytsosis which is the uptake of extracellular material in vesicles formed from the plasma membrane. They also clean up cellular waste through phagocytosis which is the uptake of large particles, such as bacteria, by a cell; and authophagy which is the degradation of cytoplasmic proteins and organelles by their enclosure in vesicles from the endoplasmic reticulum that fuse with lysosomes.

Source: 

http://www.softschools.com/science/biology/the_function_of_lysosomes/

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK9953/