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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2014 Jun 1.
Published in final edited form as: Trends Mol Med. 2013 Apr 17;19(6):355–367. doi: 10.1016/j.molmed.2013.03.005

Figure 1.

Figure 1

CD39 and CD73 shape the “purinergic halo” surrounding immune cells. The occurrence of pathological events, such as inflammation, promotes a massive accumulation of ATP, which serves as a key “danger” signal, triggering a series of proinflammatory responses (a). However, negative feedback also takes part in this context because the increased ATP secretion, as observed in the early phase of inflammation, is followed by its sequential degradation to AMP by CD39, and to adenosine by CD73. Adenosine promotes a depressive action on the immune cell activity and exerts a potent anti-inflammatory effect (b). Abbreviations: ADO, adenosine; GPI, glycosylphosphatidyl inositol.