Oxidative stress is known to cause various damages to cellular components such as nucleic acids, lipids, and proteins. [1][2][3] The damages to the cellular components are induced by free radical reactions including degradation, adduct formation, cross-linking, bond-breaking reactions, and so forth.1-3) Therefore oxidatively stressed cells are thought to undergo cell-membrane damages including membrane protein denaturation and cross-linking by free radicals.We previously studied the responses of macrophages to oxidatively damaged cells such as oxidized erythrocytes, 4,5) neutrophils, 6) and Jurkat T cells, 7) using various oxidants, and found that macrophages recognize and remove these oxidatively damaged cells. [4][5][6][7] The determinants on the oxidized cell surface that macrophages recognize were not chemically modified nor denatured membrane structure, but were preexisting carbohydrate chains containing sialyl residues and polylactosaminoglycan structures, possibly sialylpoly-N-acetyllactosaminyl chains, of membrane glycoproteins.4-7) Then, a question how macrophages discriminate the preexisting cellsurface carbohydrate chains of oxidized cells from those of unoxidized cells arose, and this was explained by the hypothesis that membrane glycoproteins aggregate to form clusters upon cell oxidation, presumably due to free radical-mediated protein cross-linking, and the resultant clusters of their extracellular polylactosaminoglycans provide multivalent and therefore high-affinity ligands for macrophage receptors. [4][5][6][7][8] However, there was no conclusive evidence for the membrane glycoprotein aggregation on oxidatively damaged cells [9][10][11][12] and for the presence of the putative macrophage receptors. [13][14][15] In another series of recent works on apoptotic cells, we found that CD43, a major membrane sialoglycoprotein of hematopoietic cells containing sialyl residues and poly-Nacetyllactosaminyl chains, of Jurkat cells aggregates to form clusters and caps at an early stage of apoptosis, and the early apoptotic Jurkat cells were recognized and taken up by macrophages through the clustered and capped CD43. 16) CD43 is a heavily sialylated membrane glycoprotein, 17) and the determinants on CD43 glycoprotein of early apoptotic cells were suggested to be sialylpoly-N-acetyllactosaminyl sugar chains 16) similarly to the determinants on oxidized cells for the macrophage recognition described above. In addition, we identified the macrophage receptor for sialylpoly-Nacetyllactosaminyl chains as nucleolin, 18) a multifunctional shuttle protein present in nucleus and cytoplasm and on the surface of some types of cells including macrophages, 19,20) and demonstrated that nucleolin expressed on cell surface recognizes early apoptotic cells but not non-apoptotic cells.
18)We also demonstrated that phosphatidylserine (PS), a wellinvestigated cell-surface marker for apoptotic cells, 21-23) is not exposed on the cell surface at the early stage of apoptosis, but is at relatively later stages.
24)Considering the s...