Macrophages use a bet-hedging strategy for antimicrobial activity in phagolysosomal acidification.

ABSTRACT: Microbial ingestion by a macrophage results in the formation of an acidic phagolysosome but the host cell has no information on the pH susceptibility of the ingested organism. This poses a problem for the macrophage and raises the fundamental question of how the phagocytic cell optimizes the acidification process to prevail. We analyzed the dynamical distribution of phagolysosomal pH in murine and human macrophages that had ingested live or dead Cryptococcus neoformans cells, or inert beads. Phagolysosomal acidification produced a range of pH values that approximated normal distributions, but these differed from normality depending on ingested particle type. Analysis of the increments of pH reduction revealed no forbidden ordinal patterns, implying that the phagosomal acidification process

SUBMITTER: Dragotakes Q 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7346583 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature