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Phagocytosis (from Ancient Greek φαγεῖν (phagein) 'to eat' and κύτος (kytos) 'cell') is the process by which a cell uses its plasma membrane to engulf a large particle (≥ 0.5 μm), giving rise to an internal compartment called the phagosome. It is one type of endocytosis. A cell that performs phagocytosis is called a phagocyte.
The first demonstration of phagocytosis as a property of leukocytes, the immune cells, was from the German zoologist Ernst Haeckel. [14] [15] In 1846, English physician Thomas Wharton Jones had discovered that a group of leucocytes, which he called "granule-cell" (later renamed and identified as eosinophil [16]), could change shape, the phenomenon later called amoeboid movement.
Unbound phagocyte surface receptors do not trigger phagocytosis. 2. Binding of receptors causes them to cluster. 3. Phagocytosis is triggered and the particle is taken up by the phagocyte. Phagocytosis is the process of taking in particles such as bacteria, invasive fungi, parasites, dead host cells, and cellular and foreign debris by a cell. [22]
Thus, phagocytosis is not a randomly occurring event. It is triggered by a ligand binding to a receptor. Some cells are specially designed to phagocytize. These cells include Natural Killer cells, macrophages, and neutrophils. All of these are involved in the immune response and serve to degrade foreign or antigenic material [4]
In cell biology, efferocytosis (from efferre, Latin for 'to carry out' [1] (to the grave), extended meaning 'to bury') is the process by which apoptotic cells are removed by phagocytic cells.
Opsonins induce phagocytosis of targets by binding the targets (e.g. bacteria) and then also binding phagocytic receptors on phagocytes. Thus, opsonins act as bridging molecules between the target and the phagocyte, bringing them into contact, and then usually activating the phagocytic receptor to induce engulfment of the target by the ...
Honoured as the "father of innate immunity", [16] [17] Metchnikoff was the first to discover a process of immunity called phagocytosis and the cell responsible for it, called phagocyte, specifically macrophage, in 1882.
Antibody opsonization is a process by which a pathogen is marked for phagocytosis through coating of a target cell with antibodies. Immunoglobulins participate in molecular tagging of pathogens which display antigens recognised by their specific paratope.