The current working definition of autophagy is the following: all processes in 
which intracellular material is degraded within the lysosome/vacuole and where 
the macromolecular constituents are recycled. There are several ways to classify 
the different types of autophagy. For example, we can separate autophagy into 
two primary types, based on the initial site of cargo sequestration. In 
particular, during microautophagy and chaperone-mediated autophagy, uptake 
occurs directly at the limiting membrane of the lysosome or vacuole. In 
contrast, macroautophagy-whether selective or nonselective-and endosomal 
microautophagy involve sequestration within an autophagosome or an omegasome, or 
late endosomes/multivesicular bodies, respectively; the key point being that in 
these types of autophagy the initial sequestration event does not occur at the 
limiting membrane of the degradative organelle. In any case, the cargo is 
ultimately delivered into the lysosome or vacuole lumen for subsequent 
degradation. Thus, I think most autophagy researchers view the degradative 
organelle as the ultimate destination of the pathway. Indeed, this fits with the 
general concept that organelles allow reactions to be compartmentalized. With 
regard to the lysosome or vacuole, this also confers a level of safety by 
keeping the lytic contents away from the remainder of the cell. If we are 
willing to slightly modify our definition of autophagy, with a focus on 
"degradation of a cell's own components through the lysosomal/vacuolar 
machinery," we can include a newly documented process, programmed nuclear 
destruction (PND).