"In this scenario, the macrophage might contribute to pathogen elimination by depleting nutrients essential for pathogen growth"
This was just something I caught and found to be a pretty interesting hypothesis. From a statement in this paper dealing with medical imaging:
bloodjournal.hematologylibrary.org/content/113/2/438.full.pdf"Because activated macrophages are not thought to be actively proliferating, the question naturally arises why activated macrophages might up-regulate a receptor for a vitamin required primarily for DNA synthesis. Although many hypotheses can be offered, we speculate that macrophages might primarily undergo activation to equip themselves with tools to prevent pathogen invasion; that is, as suggested by their accumulation at sites of inflammation and regions of chronic exposure to pathogens (eg, airways in lungs, outer layers of skin). In this scenario, the macrophage might contribute to pathogen elimination by depleting nutrients essential for pathogen growth. Thus, it has been recently established that macrophages rapidly accumulate iron during an acute infection,41 leading to the commonly observed drop in serum iron levels.42 Perhaps depletion of folate from the nutrient-rich intercellular milieu via expression of a high affinity FR can also contribute to limiting pathogen proliferation."
Post Edited (Canada Mark) : 3/19/2014 11:37:44 AM (GMT-6)