Write An Essay On Macrophages

When a human dies, his or her body gets decomposed until there is nothing left but bare bones. This phenomenon is possible due to millions of bacteria that exist in around us.They essentially feast on the cells, breaking the human’s building blocks down for their own use. But if the living and the dead are composed of the same fundamental materials, what prevents us, the living, from being devoured by the horde of hungry pathogens? The answer lies in the body’s immune system.
The story starts with the bacteria entering the human body and starting to multiply. In this process, the human cells are damaged and assimilated to help the multiplication of the pathogens. For a helpless dead body, the story ends here. Luckily for you, a perfectly healthy human, your body hosts an entire regiment of cells collectively known as the immune system that are designed specifically to fend off this invasion.
The first line of defense in the immune system is the macrophages, which literally means “big eaters” in Greek. As the name might suggest, the macrophages are gargantuan cells that patrol the border regions of our body. They kill the intruding pathogen by trapping it inside their membrane and then digest it with their enzymes. More often than not, the macrophages alone are sufficient to deal with the attack, …show more content…
In such cases, they release a signal calling for backup. The neutrophils, a type of white blood cells, answer the call by leaving their routine position in the bloodstream and join the battle. They are very mobile warriors that attacks the enemies either by trapping, digesting, or, most importantly, poisoning them. Indeed, the toxin released by the neutrophils are so effective at killing microorganism that they cause collateral damage to nearby healthy body cells. Because of how deadly they are, the neutrophils are programmed to self-destruct after five days to prevent unwanted harm to the