Satellite heterophagosomes.
An incidental observation made during a recent ultrastructural study shows that after ingestion of an erythrocyte by a Kupffer  cell surface budding occurred from the heterophagosome leading to the formation of smaller satellite or daughter heterophagosomes. It is suggested that an entire erythrocyte may be too large to digest in a single heterolysosome and that fragmentation into smaller units facilitates digestion by bringing about better contact between the enzymes and substrates.
D004912:Erythrocytes / Q000648:ultrastructure; D007728:Kupffer Cells / Q000648:ultrastructure*; D010587:Phagocytosis