Lipid Body–Phagosome Interaction in Macrophages during Infectious Diseases: Host Defense or Pathogen Survival Strategy?

Phagocytosis of invading microorganisms by specialized cells such as macrophages and neutrophils is a key component of the innate immune response. These cells capture and engulf pathogens and subsequently destroy them in intracellular vacuoles—the phagosomes. Pathogen phagocytosis and progression and maturation of pathogen-containing phagosomes, a crucial event to acquire microbicidal features, occurs in parallel with accentuated formation of lipid-rich organelles, termed lipid bodies (LBs), or lipid droplets. Experimental and clinical infections with different pathogens such as bacteria, parasites, and viruses induce LB accumulation in cells from the immune system. Within these cells, LBs synthesize and store inflammatory mediators and are considered structural markers of inflammation. In addition to LB accumulation, interaction of these organelles with pathogen-containing phagosomes has increasingly been recognized in response to infections and may have implications in the outcome or survival of the microorganism within host cells. In this review, we summarize our current knowledge on the LB-phagosome interaction within cells from the immune system, with emphasis on macrophages, and discuss the functional meaning of this event during infectious diseases.