Answer
Autophagy is the intracellular digestion of damaged organelles and other cellular contents in the cytoplasm that follows lysosomal degradation.
Individuals with light skin color may have a high rate of autophagy of melanosomes in keratinocytes, resulting in less pigmentation compared to individuals with dark skin color.
Work Step by Step
It is hypothesized that variation in human skin color because of differences in the number of melanosomes is attributed to autophagy. It may occur if melanosomes are eliminated by autophagy. When more melanosomes are present, dark skin might result. However, even if the cells have a large number of melanosomes, if they have high autophagic activity, these cells can get destroyed effectively reducing the melanosome number, resulting in lighter skin.
