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Macrophage

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Macrophages (abbreviated as Mφ , MΦ or MP ) (Greek: large eaters , from Greek μακρός ( makrós ) = large, φαγεῖν ( phagein ) = to eat) are a type of white blood cell of the immune system that engulfs and digests cellular debris, foreign substances, microbes, cancer cells, and anything else that does not have the type of proteins specific to healthy body cells on its surface in a process called phagocytosis. These large phagocytes are found in essentially all tissues, where they patrol for potential pathogens by amoeboid movement. They take various forms (with various names) throughout the body (e.g., histiocytes, Kupffer cells, alveolar macrophages, microglia, and others), but all are part of the mononuclear phagocyte system. Besides phagocytosis, they play a critical role in nonspecific defense (innate immunity) and also help initiate specific defense mechanisms (adaptive immunity) by recruiting other immune cells such as lymphocytes. For example, they are important as antigen pre...
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Function

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Phagocytosis edit Macrophages are professional phagocytes and are highly specialized in removal of dying or dead cells and cellular debris. This role is important in chronic inflammation, as the early stages of inflammation are dominated by neutrophils, which are ingested by macrophages if they come of age (see CD31 for a description of this process). The neutrophils are at first attracted to a site, where they perform their function and die, before they are phagocytized by the macrophages. When at the site, the first wave of neutrophils, after the process of aging and after the first 48 hours, stimulate the appearance of the macrophages whereby these macrophages will then ingest the aged neutrophils. The removal of dying cells is, to a greater extent, handled by fixed macrophages , which will stay at strategic locations such as the lungs, liver, neural tissue, bone, spleen and connective tissue, ingesting foreign materials such as pathogens and recruiting additional macrophages if nee...
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