Endocytosis in health and disease—a thematic issue dedicated to Renate Fuchs

Isabella Ellinger · Peter Pietschmann

Endocytosis is the process of internalization of extracellular material. Endocytic pathways include clathrin-dependent uptake, caveolae-dependent uptake, macropinocytosis, and phagocytosis. Endocytosis enables uptake of nutrients and helps to control the composition of the plasma membrane. The process is important for the regulation of major cellular functions such as antigen presentation or intracellular signaling cascades. Moreover, it is required to remove aged and dead cells from the body and is part of the defense against microbes. Of importance, perturbation of endocytosis has been reported in numerous human diseases including cancer, neurodegenerative diseases, diabetes mellitus, and cardiovascular disease, to name but a few. Finally, endocytosis represents an important cellular route for delivery of therapeutic substances. Due to this functional diversity, endocytosis is a very active research area. At the moment, almost 100,000 published articles are retrieved by PubMed upon entry of the term “endocytosis” and, over the years, many researches have contributed to our understanding of endocytic pathways.

This thematic issue of the Wiener Medizinische Wochenschrift (wmw) on “Endocytosis in health and disease” is dedicated to our colleague Renate Fuchs from the Department of Pathophysiology and Allergy Research at the Medical University of Vienna, Austria, on the occasion of her retirement in October 2016.

Wiener Medizinische Wochenschrift May 2016, Volume 166, Issue 7,

Wien Med Wochenschr 2016 · 166:193–195 DOI 10.1007/s10354-016-0454-1