Function
It is thought that scavenger receptors participate in the removal of many foreign substances and waste materials in the living body by extensive ligand specificity and a variety of receptor molecules.
In atherosclerotic lesions, macrophages that express scavenger receptors on their plasma membrane aggressively uptake the oxidized LDL deposited in the blood vessel wall inside and become foam cells, and they secrete various inflammatory cytokines and accelerate the development of atherosclerosis.
Read more about this topic: Scavenger Receptor
Famous quotes containing the word function:
“If the children and youth of a nation are afforded opportunity to develop their capacities to the fullest, if they are given the knowledge to understand the world and the wisdom to change it, then the prospects for the future are bright. In contrast, a society which neglects its children, however well it may function in other respects, risks eventual disorganization and demise.”
—Urie Bronfenbrenner (b. 1917)
“Uses are always much broader than functions, and usually far less contentious. The word function carries overtones of purpose and propriety, of concern with why something was developed rather than with how it has actually been found useful. The function of automobiles is to transport people and objects, but they are used for a variety of other purposes—as homes, offices, bedrooms, henhouses, jetties, breakwaters, even offensive weapons.”
—Frank Smith (b. 1928)
“The intension of a proposition comprises whatever the proposition entails: and it includes nothing else.... The connotation or intension of a function comprises all that attribution of this predicate to anything entails as also predicable to that thing.”
—Clarence Lewis (1883–1964)