4.6 Article

Differentiation and Glucocorticoid Regulated Apopto-Phagocytic Gene Expression Patterns in Human Macrophages. Role of Mertk in Enhanced Phagocytosis

Journal

PLOS ONE
Volume 6, Issue 6, Pages -

Publisher

PUBLIC LIBRARY SCIENCE
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0021349

Keywords

-

Funding

  1. Hungarian Scientific Research Fund [OTKA NI 67877]
  2. Hungarian Ministry of Health
  3. EU [MRTN-CT-2006-036032, MRTN-CT 2006-035624, LSHB-CT-2007-037730]
  4. TAMOP [4.2.1./B-09/1/KONV-2010-0007]
  5. European Social Fund

Ask authors/readers for more resources

The daily clearance of physiologically dying cells is performed safely mainly by cells in the mononuclear phagocyte system. They can recognize and engulf dying cells utilizing several cooperative mechanisms. In our study we show that the expression of a broad range of apopto-phagocytic genes is strongly up-regulated during differentiation of human monocytes to macrophages with different donor variability. The glucocorticoid dexamethasone has a profound effect on this process by selectively up-regulating six genes and down-regulating several others. The key role of the up-regulated mer tyrosine kinase (Mertk) in dexamethasone induced enhancement of phagocytosis could be demonstrated in human monocyte derived macrophages by gene silencing as well as blocking antibodies, and also in a monocyte-macrophage like cell line. However, the additional role of other glucocorticoid induced elements must be also considered since the presence of autologous serum during phagocytosis could almost completely compensate for the blocked function of Mertk.

Authors

I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.

Reviews

Primary Rating

4.6
Not enough ratings

Secondary Ratings

Novelty
-
Significance
-
Scientific rigor
-
Rate this paper

Recommended

No Data Available
No Data Available