An estimated 2 million deaths are reported every year due to tuberculosis caused by the mycobacterium tuberculosis alone whereas more than hundred million cases of pneumonia are reported annually. Infectious diseases caused by bacteria are the leading source for hospital visits across the world. These findings have significant implications in understanding the pathogenicity of bacteria and in designing drug delivery carriers.īacteria are the major cause of infectious diseases in humans. The surface features of macrophages, in particular the membrane ruffles, might play an important role in this geometry-based target recognition by macrophages. This also happens to be the size range of most commonly found bacteria in nature. For all sizes and shapes studied, particles possessing the longest dimension in the range of 2–3 µm exhibited highest attachment. The studies reported here reveal that attachment of particles of different geometries to macrophages exhibits a strong dependence on size and shape. Here, using polymeric particles of different geometries that represent the size and shape range of a variety of bacteria, the importance of target geometry in recognition was investigated.
Previous studies have focused on recognition of pathogens through surface receptors present on the macrophage's surface. Recognition by macrophages is a key process in generating immune response against invading pathogens.
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