Recently, researchers have shown that crk plays a role in regulating the shape or movement of cells. But despite more than a decade of research on crk, its biological role remained unclear according, to Birge, a former assistant professor in Hanafusa's Laboratory of Molecular Oncology and now an associate professor at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey. Birge spent several years studying the function of crk in terms of its regulation of growth in cells. The immunologic mechanism that crk is involved in is called phagocytosis, the process by which cells ingest particulate matter generally for the purpose of defending the organism as a whole from potentially harmful invaders. In phagocytosis, the cell folds a portion of its plasma membrane inward.
M denotes a mitochondrian.
The unlikely collaboration between Albert and Birge began two years ago, after Albert, Nina Bhardwaj, an associate professor for clinical investigation Professor Ralph Steinman's Laboratory of Cellular Physiology and Immunology, and Darnell discovered a role for apoptotic cells as a source of antigen for dendritic cells. Dendritic cells, often called the sentinels of the immune system, are capable of phagocytosing dying cells and activating viral and tumor-specific T cells. This work, published in Nature and Nature Medicine, has led to much excitement in the field regarding potential immunotherapy applications. Integrin receptors attach cells to the extracellular matrix and mediate mechanical and chemical signals from it. Importantly, the use of avb5 distinguishes dendritic cells from another phagocytic cell, called the macrophage, which uses a different integrin to capture and degrade apoptotic cells.