Abstract

Phagocytosis is a cell function used by immune cells, such as macrophages, to engulf and degrade foreign pathogens and particles. It is also the cellular process that leads to the failure of many drug- or gene-delivery particles; the drug carriers are cleared by immune cells before reaching their intended destination. Therefore, understanding phagocytosis of particles has significant implications in both fundamental understanding and biomedical engineering. In this presentation, I will show our progress in developing novel quantitative methods to probe dynamics and mechanism of phagocytosis. By using particles that display two fluorescent patches on opposing poles as rotational probes, we investigated the rotational dynamics of single microparticles during their internalization by macrophage cells. We show that particles exhibit a mixture of fast and slow rotation and transiently undergo directional rotation as they are internalized by macrophages. Results showing the effect of the particle size and the surface presentation of ligands will also be presented.

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