An in vitro model mimicking the complement system to favor directed phagocytosis of unwanted cells

November 29, 2021

Title

An in vitro model mimicking the complement system to favor directed phagocytosis of unwanted cells

Author

Ivonne M. Bartsch, Karen Perelmuter, Mariela Bollati-Fogolin, Angelo Bartsch J, Fanny Guzman, Sergio H. Marshall

Year

2021

Journal

Electronic Journal of Biothechnology

Abstract

Opsonization, is the molecular mechanism by which target molecules promote interactions with phagocyte cell surface receptors to remove unwanted cells by induced phagocytosis. We designed an in vitro system to demonstrate that this procedure could be driven to eliminate adipocytes, using peptides mimicking regions of the complement protein C3b to promote opsonization and enhance phagocytosis. Two cell lines were used: (1) THP-1 monocytes differentiated to macrophages, expressing the C3b opsonin receptor CR1 in charge of the removal of unwanted coated complexes; (2) 3T3-L1 fibroblasts differentiated to adipocytes, expressing AQP7, to evaluate the potential of peptides to stimulate opsonization. (3) A co-culture of the two cell lines to demonstrate that phagocytosis could be driven to cell withdrawal with high efficiency and specificity.

Instrument

J-815

Keywords

interactions, cell, peptides, macrophages