Background & Aim: One of the major problems of modern medicine is the increasing consumption of synthetic drugs and frequent use of them will result in side effects. Considering this issue, patients should be mainly motivated to use pharmaceutical plants. Regarding the positive effects of sumac on the immune system, in the present study, we made a decision to compare sumac with...

Phagocytosis has long been recognized as one of the differentiated functions of the macrophage and yet many of the cellular and biochemical mechanisms underlying this process remain unclear. Rabinovitch has separated the process of phagocytosis into two phases: attachment and ingestion (1). The former is dependent both on the surface properties of the cell and on the particle and is independent...

PURPOSE To characterize the phagocytosis of extracellular matrix components by retinal pigment epithelial cells and to determine which receptors and signal transduction pathways are involved. METHODS Fluorescent latex beads were coated with fibronectin (FN), collagen type I or IV, or thrombospondin and incubated with human retinal pigment epithelial cells for 3 hours. Phagocytosis was quantif...

We hypothesized that changes in extracellular pressure during inflammation or infection regulate macrophage phagocytosis through modulating the focal adhesion kinase (FAK)-ERK pathway. Undifferentiated (monocyte-like) or PMA-differentiated (macrophage-like) THP-1 cells were incubated at 37 degrees C with serum-opsonized latex beads under ambient or 20-mmHg increased pressure. Pressure did not a...

The stage-dependent phagocytosis of Plasmodium falciparum-infected erythrocytes (IRBC) opsonized with nonimmune serum has been investigated. An average of 2.9 red blood cell (RBC) harboring ring-forms (RIRBC) and 7.5 RBC infected with trophozoites (TIRBC) or schizonts (SIRBC) were ingested per monocyte, in comparison with 0.8 noninfected RBC (NRBC) or 5 RBC oxidatively damaged with diamide. Abr...

In a previous investigation it was determined that Pseudomonas aeruginosa cells taken directly from a mouse in vivo growth system were significantly more susceptible to nonopsonic phagocytosis by macrophages than were similar cells after being washed in buffer (N. M. Kelly, J. L. Battershill, S. Kuo, J. P. Arbuthnott, and R. E. W. Hancock, Infect. Immun. 55:2841-2843, 1987). It was demonstrated...

Two types of opsonic phagocytosis have been defined depending on the receptor engaged: FcgammaRs mediate type I phagocytosis of IgG-coated particles; complement receptor 3 (CR3) mediates type II phagocytosis of complement-coated particles. In addition to opsonic phagocytosis, CR3 also mediates nonopsonic phagocytosis of zymosan (Z) and Mycobacterium kansasii through engagement of distinct sites...

The objectives of this study were to determine if fat globules and casein in goat milk were inhibitory to phagocytosis by polymorphonuclear neutrophils (PMN) isolated from blood, and to determine if variation existed among goats in the ability of PMN to phagocytose and in the ability of milk whey to support phagocytosis. Milk and blood were obtained from six goats. Serum, skimmed milk and milk ...

Photoreceptor cell (rods and cones) renewal is accompanied by intermittent shedding of the distal tips of the outer segment followed by their phagocytosis in the retinal pigment epithelial (RPE) cells. This renewal is essential for vision, and it is thought that it fosters survival of photoreceptors and of RPE cells. However, no specific survival messenger/mediators have as yet been identified....

Micro/nanorobots are promising for a wide range of biomedical applications (such as targeted tumor, thrombus, and infection therapies in hard-to-reach body sites) because their tiny size high maneuverability through the actuation external fields (e.g., magnetic field, light, ultrasound, electric and/or heat). However, fully synthetic micro/nanorobots foreign objects susceptible to phagocytosis ...