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Updated: Sep 21, 2025

Quantification of Efferocytosis by Single-cell Fluorescence Microscopy
Published on: August 18, 2018
Drugging the efferocytosis process: concepts and opportunities
Parul Mehrotra1, Kodi S Ravichandran2,3,4
1Unit for Cell Clearance in Health and Disease, VIB Center for Inflammation Research, Ghent, Belgium.
Abstract:
The daily removal of billions of apoptotic cells in the human body via the process of efferocytosis is essential for homeostasis. To allow for this continuous efferocytosis, rapid phenotypic changes occur in the phagocytes enabling them to engulf and digest the apoptotic cargo. In addition, efferocytosis is actively anti-inflammatory and promotes resolution. Owing to its ubiquitous nature and the sheer volume of cell turnover, efferocytosis is a point of vulnerability. Aberrations in efferocytosis are associated with numerous inflammatory pathologies, including atherosclerosis, cancer and infections. The recent exciting discoveries defining the molecular machinery involved in efferocytosis have opened many avenues for therapeutic intervention, with several agents now in clinical trials.
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