Lysosome
Lisosoma
- Date
- 1955 · confidence high
- Place
- Catholic University of Louvain, Leuven, Belgium
- Credited to
- Christian de Duve
- Field
- Life & health
What was discovered
While investigating why an enzyme appeared more active after letting cell extracts stand, de Duve used differential centrifugation to isolate an unknown organelle packed with digestive enzymes, which he named the lysosome in 1955.
The biochemical finding (differential centrifugation) dates from the mid-1940s to early 1950s; the name and characterisation as an organelle are from 1955, confirmed shortly after by electron microscopy.
What it led to
- Understanding of intracellular digestion and the recycling of cell components
- Identification of more than 50 lysosomal storage diseases
- De Duve's 1974 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, shared with Palade and Claude