**10. Efficiency of phagocytosis**

Many phagocytes have a relatively low phagocytosis capacity at rest and when inflammation gets in, phagocytes get exposed to a variety of activating stimuli which increase the efficiency of the cell to phagocytose. The activating stimuli include, bacterial products, cytokines and inflammatory mediators, the signals induced by these substances lead to increased activation of molecules involved I phagocytosis e.g. leukotrieneB4 increases Syk activation and consequently antibody dependent phagocytosis [49]. Also the action of P13K and ERK, which are essential enzymes for bacterial peptide, glanulocyte colony stimulating factor, leukotrienes and cytokines such as interleukin [50]. Phagocytosis can be regulated by cell differentiation, e.g. monocytes have lower phagocytic capability than neutrophils and macrophages, however they can enhance their phagocytic capacity after cell differentiation [51]. The capacity of monocytes to phagocytose diverse targets alter with the state of differentiation. Therefore during monocyte to macrophage differentiation the e most important signaling enzymes are reorganized in order to achieve increased phagocytosis [51, 52].

*Functioning and Control of Phagocytosis DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.110511*
