Membrane stimulation and intracellular killing of micro-organisms by human monocytes

Abstract

Mononuclear phagocytes play an important role in the destruction of a variety of targets of different origin such as micro-organisms, tumor cells, and immune-complexes. To exert all these functions optimally, these cells can draw on a large number of cytotoxic mechanisms (1–6; Nathan, and Adams and Hamilton, this volume). The main differences between these mechanisms are that some occur intra- and others extracellularly and that some are dependent on oxygen and other are not. Our main field of interest among the cytotoxic activities of mononuclear phagocytes is the way in which these cells deal with ingested microorganisms and the relation between intracellular killing mechanisms and those known to play a leading role in the extracellular cytotoxicity of these cells.