title: Clearing the dead: apoptotic cell sensing, recognition, engulfment, and digestion.
abstract: Clearance of apoptotic cells is the final stage of programmed cell death. Uncleared corpses can become secondarily necrotic, promoting inflammation and autoimmunity. Remarkably, even in tissues with high cellular turnover, apoptotic cells are rarely seen because of efficient clearance mechanisms in healthy individuals. Recently, significant progress has been made in understanding the steps involved in prompt cell clearance in vivo. These include the sensing of corpses via "find me" signals, the recognition of corpses via "eat me" signals and their cognate receptors, the signaling pathways that regulate cytoskeletal rearrangement necessary for engulfment, and the responses of the phagocyte that keep cell clearance events "immunologically silent." This study focuses on our understanding of these steps.
authors.affiliation: Department of Microbiology, Immunology and Cancer Biology, Center for Cell Clearance and Beirne Carter Center for Immunology Research, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA 22908, USA.
authors.forename: Amelia
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Hochreiter-Hufford
authors.forename: Kodi S
authors.initials: KS
authors.lastname: Ravichandran
mesh_terms: D017209:Apoptosis / Q000502:physiology*; D002465:Cell Movement; D002633:Chemotaxis; D003599:Cytoskeleton / Q000378:metabolism; D008954:Models, Biological; D009504:Neutrophils / Q000378:metabolism / Q000502:physiology; D010586:Phagocytes / Q000502:physiology*; D010587:Phagocytosis / Q000502:physiology*; D011956:Receptors, Cell Surface / Q000378:metabolism / Q000502:physiology; D015398:Signal Transduction
chemical_list: D011956:Receptors, Cell Surface