"With a little help from my friends": efferocytosis as an antimicrobial mechanism

Volker Briken

doi:10.1016/j.chom.2012.08.008

"With a little help from my friends": efferocytosis as an antimicrobial mechanism

Cell Host Microbe. 2012 Sep 13;12(3):261-3. doi: 10.1016/j.chom.2012.08.008.

Author

Volker Briken¹

Affiliation

¹ Department of Cell Biology and Molecular Genetics, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742, USA. vbriken@umd.edu

Abstract

The uptake of apoptotic cells by phagocytes is defined as efferocytosis. In this issue of Cell Host & Microbe, Martin et al. (2012) and Yang et al. (2012) report that macrophage- and neutrophil-mediated efferocytosis of apoptotic cells containing mycobacteria is an innate antibacterial effector mechanism.

Publication types

Comment

Grants and funding

R01 AI072584/AI/NIAID NIH HHS/United States