And what these cytokines are believed to do is they carry out the following several functions. First of all, they begin the process of repairing these cells. They continue the process of immunosurveillance. As we discussed previously, they seem to indirectly affect the cytolysis of local antigenic presenting cells. So why would we want to lyce, for example, a macrophage? Well, if a macrophage eats too many of these pathogens it will essentially stop functioning correctly.