How much of a macrophage does one engulfment cost? Move the sliders; the volume fraction follows.
Phagosome volume per engulfment
0.905 um3 Budget 4,849 um3. Budget given with the twin: the bar is the share of it this cell uses.
The macrophage cannot engulf a particle whose volume exceeds its own cell volume; this twin shows the per-engulfment cost as a fraction of cell volume. The budget is exhausted when phagosome volume equals cell volume.
source 1source 2,
Cell volume
4,849 um3
4,849 to 4,849 um3 exact
Phagosome volume (one)
0.905 um3
0.268 to 268 um3 propagated
Phagosome membrane area (one)
4.52 um2
2.01 to 201 um2 propagated
Cell volume consumed per engulfment
0.019 %
0.002 to 63.7 % propagated
Withheld
Active phagosomes per resting macrophage
No verified primary source for the number of active phagosomes in a resting tissue macrophage; imaging studies use artificial bead loads that do not reflect the physiological steady-state count