Chapter category: Immunology
Calcium Signaling During Phagocytosis
Molecular Mechanisms of Phagocytosis
Edited by: Carlos RosalesISBN: 0-387-25419-6
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Chapter authors:
Alirio J. Melendez
Phagocytosis is important for a wide diversity of organisms. From simple unicellular organisms that use phagocytosis to eat, to complex metazoans in which phagocytic cells represent an essential branch of the immune system. Evolution has armed cells with a fantastic repertoire of molecules that serve to bring about this complex event regardless of the organism or specific molecules concerned. However, all phagocytic processes are driven by a finely controlled rearrangement of the actin cytoskeleton where calcium (Ca2+) signals play important roles. Ca2+ plays many roles in cytoskeletal changes by affecting the actions of a number of contractile proteins, as well as being a cofactor for the activation of a number of intracellular signaling proteins, known to play important roles during phagocytosis. In the mammalian immune system, the requirement of Ca2+ for the initial steps in phagocytosis, and the subsequent phagosome maturation, can be quite different depending on the type of cell and on the type of receptor that is driving phagocytosis.
Additional chapters from this book:
Adding Complexity to Phagocytic Signaling: Phagocytosis-Associated Cell Responses and Phagocytic Efficiency
Erick Garcia-García and Carlos Rosales
Regulation of the phagocytic process involves complex signaling pathways that lead to particle internalization and destruction. Phagocytosis, however, is not a cellular response occurring as an isol...
Diversity in Phagocytic Signaling: A Story of Greed, Sharing, and Exploitation
Erick Garcia-García
Phagocytosis is the process whereby cells engulf large particles. Phagocytosis is triggered by the interaction of opsonins covering the surface of a phagocytic target with specific phagocyte recepto...
Regulation of Phagocytosis by FcgRIIb and Phosphatases
Susheela Tridandapani and Clark L. Anderson
Phagocytosis of immune-complexes is a dynamic process that is accompanied by the generation of inflammatory/tissue damaging products. Recent advances in the field indicate that this process is subje...
Fc Receptor Phagocytosis
Randall G. Worth and Alan D. Schreiber
Antigen recognition by cells of the immune system occurs via many mechanisms. One important family of receptors involved in the recognition of immunoglobulin (Ig) coated particles and complexes ar...
Phagocytosis and Immunity
Steven Greenberg
Phagocytosis is an phylogenetically conserved mechanism utilized by many cells to ingest microbial pathogens and apoptotic or necrotic corpses. Recent studies have demonstrated that phagocytosis ser...
Calcium Signaling During Phagocytosis
Alirio J. Melendez
Phagocytosis is important for a wide diversity of organisms. From simple unicellular organisms that use phagocytosis to eat, to complex metazoans in which phagocytic cells represent an essential bra...
Complement Receptors, Adhesion, and Phagocytosis
Eric Brown
Recognition of potential pathogens by host cells involved in their destruction is the initial step in generation of sterilizing immunity after epithelial barriers have been penetrated by disease-cau...
Phagosome Maturation
William S. Trimble, Marc G. Coppolino
Phagocytosis is the process used by eukaryotic cells to engulf and ingest foreign particles. In lower eukaryotes this process is mainly used for food uptake while in multicellular organisms phagocyt...
Small GTP Binding Proteins and the Control of Phagocytic Uptake
Agnès Wiedemann, Jenson Lim and Emmanuelle Caron
Phagocytosis is a conserved cellular process in Eukaryotes. A multi-step process, it involves the recognition of particulate material, e.g., microbes and apoptotic cells, their F-actin-driven engulf...
Phospholipases and Phagocytosis
Michelle R. Lennartz
Phagocytosis, the process by which particulate matter is taken up by cells, is characteristic of many cell types including the pigmented epithelium of the eye, Langerhans cells in the skin, the micr...
