Function
MBL belongs to the class of collectins in the C-type lectin superfamily, whose function appears to be pattern recognition in the first line of defense in the pre-immune host. MBL recognizes carbohydrate patterns, found on the surface of a large number of pathogenic micro-organisms, including bacteria, viruses, protozoa and fungi. Binding of MBL to a micro-organism results in activation of the lectin pathway of the complement system.
Another important function of MBL is that this molecule binds senescent and apoptotic cells and enhances engulfment of whole, intact apoptotic cells, as well as cell debris by phagocytes.
Read more about this topic: Mannan-binding Lectin
Famous quotes containing the word function:
“It is not the function of our Government to keep the citizen from falling into error; it is the function of the citizen to keep the Government from falling into error.”
—Robert H. [Houghwout] Jackson (1892–1954)
“The function of the actor is to make the audience imagine for the moment that real things are happening to real people.”
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)
“As a medium of exchange,... worrying regulates intimacy, and it is often an appropriate response to ordinary demands that begin to feel excessive. But from a modernized Freudian view, worrying—as a reflex response to demand—never puts the self or the objects of its interest into question, and that is precisely its function in psychic life. It domesticates self-doubt.”
—Adam Phillips, British child psychoanalyst. “Worrying and Its Discontents,” in On Kissing, Tickling, and Being Bored, p. 58, Harvard University Press (1993)