Abstract
Phagocytosis is the uptake of large particles by cells by a mechanism that is based on local rearrangement of the actin microfilament cytoskeleton. In higher organisms, phagocytic cells are essential for host defence against invading pathogens, and phagocytosis contributes to inflammation and the immune response. In addition, engulfment, defined as the phagocytic clearance of cell corpses generated by programmed cell death or apoptosis, has an essential role in tissue homeostasis. Although morphologically distinct phagocytic events can be observed depending on the type of surface receptor engaged, work over the past two years has revealed the essential underlying role of Rho family proteins and their downstream effectors in controlling actin dynamics during phagocytosis.
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Acknowledgements
We are most grateful to M. Beckerle, F. Castellano, L. Machesky, D. Marguet, and R.C. May for their comments and advice on this manuscript. C. Beziers la Fosse is acknowledged for skillful assistance in the preparation of figures.
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Note added in proof: Very recent data have established that the CED-2/CED-5/CED-10 signalling pathway, which controls engulfment in C. elegans, is evolutionarily conserved and functionally analogous in mammalian cells to the integrin-triggered assembly of the CrkII/Dock180/Rac1 molecular complex (Albert, M. I., Kim, J-I. and Birge, R. The aub5 integrin recruits the CrkII/Dock180/Rac1 molecular complex for phagocytosis of apoptotic cells. Nature Cell Biol., in the press).
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Chimini, G., Chavrier, P. Function of Rho family proteins in actin dynamics during phagocytosis and engulfment. Nat Cell Biol 2, E191–E196 (2000). https://doi.org/10.1038/35036454
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/35036454
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