Q. What is the heterophagic intracellular digestion and How is this process accomplished?
Heterophagic intracellular digestion is the breaking into smaller substances of external substances engulfed in the cell by phagocytosis or pinocytosis. Pinosomes or Phagosomes fuse with lysosomes making the digestive vacuoles. Within the digestive vacuoles the molecules to be digested are hydrolyzed and the products of the digestion cross through the membrane and reach the cytoplasm or they are kept within the vacuoles. The vacuole with residues from digestion is known as residual body and by exocytosis it fuses with the plasma membrane and liberates its "waste" in the external space.