blocking this suppression is an attractive therapeutic option. Pathological phagoptosis of blood cells. Hemophagocytosis is a clinical condition, found in many infectious and inflammatory disorders, where activated macrophages have engulfed apparently viable blood cells, resulting in reduced white or red cell count (cytopenia). IFN-γ (and possibly other cytokines) appears to drive hemophagocytosis during infection by directly stimulating phagoptosis of blood cells by macrophages. Hemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis (HLH) is characterized by excessive engulfment of hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) by bone marrow macrophages, and this has been found to result from down regulation of CD47 expression on HSCs, enabling macrophages to eat them alive. Pathological phagoptosis in the brain. Microglial phagocytosis of stressed-but-viable neurons occurs under inflammatory conditions, and may contribute to neuronal loss in brain pathologies [2]. References Cellular processes