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Updated: Dec 11, 2025

Study of Phagolysosome Biogenesis in Live Macrophages
Published on: March 10, 2014
Unconventional role of lysosomes in phagocytosis
Johannes Westman1, Spencer A Freeman2, Sergio Grinstein2
1Program in Cell Biology, Peter Gilgan Centre for Research and Learning, The Hospital for Sick Children, 686 Bay St, Toronto, ON, M5G 0A4, Canada.
Abstract:
Lysosomes are generally thought to be required only for the late stages of phagosome maturation, providing the proton pumps (V-ATPases) and hydrolases needed to acidify and degrade the ingested prey. A recent paper by Davis et al. (EMBO J. [2020], doi:10.15252/embj.2019104058) reports the involvement of lysosomes at a much earlier stage, namely in scission of phagosomes from the plasma membrane. Here we analyze these findings, highlighting a number of unexpected observations and unresolved questions.
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