Autophagy assessment in circulating leukocytes.

Abstract in brief

• This text discusses how autophagy, a process that helps clean out damaged cells, is important for health and aging, and the need for simple ways to measure it in living organisms.
• The authors describe a new method using fasting to trigger autophagy in mice, combined with a leupeptin-based test and flow cytometry to count LC3B puncta in blood cells, which indicates autophagy activity.
• They propose that this technique can be easily used in research settings to test whether potential drugs actually promote autophagy in vivo, aiding in drug development and health research.]