Macrophage

The maintenance of skeletal muscle mass and metabolic capacity is extremely important for human health and quality of life (Wolfe RR 2006). Skeletal muscle has distinct metabolic and contractile properties that can be influenced by nutrients uptake, microenvironment, and contractile activity. Plasticity and heterogeneity have also been shown to be hallmarks of skeletal muscle as shown by muscle morphology, fiber type, and oxidative capacity. Age, disuse, fasting and various degenerative diseases…

Atherosclerosis: Atherosclerosis is a disease in which plaque builds up inside your arteries. Arteries are blood vessels that carry oxygen-rich blood to your heart and other parts of your body. Plaque is made up of fat, cholesterol, calcium, and other substances found in the blood. Over time, plaque hardens and narrows your arteries, reducing blood flow to your organs (such as your heart) and other parts of your body. This can lead to serious problems, including heart attack, stroke, or even…

Rheumatoid Arthritis is a chronic autoimmune disease that affects many tissues but primarily attacks the joints causing inflammation as a result of the immune response. Resulting in a proliferative synovitis that is a degenerative joint irregularity process. This disease is a serious long-term clinical syndrome with restricted treatment options and deprived outcomes. There are many subsets of this disease but essentially all of them will lead to “persistent synovial inflammation and associated…

through the blood and become stuck to the artery walls, due to an injury in the endothelial lining of the blood vessel. After some time, the build up of plaque activates the body’s inflammatory process. Macrophages are sent to clean up the debris however if there is a high amount of lipids, the macrophages become enlarged and are not able to leak through the capillary bed via vascular permeability.…

speed of action potential conduction. Microglial cells are much smaller cells derived from hematopoietic stem cells. These cells have a lot in common with macrophage tissue. They are basically scavenger cells which remove cellular debris from any site of injuries or normal cell turnover. Many microbiologists consider these cells as a type of macrophage. Whenever we have a severe or traumatic brain injury, our bodies produce more of these cells in order to compensate for the overwhelming damage…

Toll like receptors (TLRs) are a class of proteins, which play an important role in the innate immune system. They are usually single, they usually span the entire membrane and are expressed on sentinel cells such as dendritic cells and macrophages, which recognize structurally conserved molecules derived from microbes. When the microbe breaches the physical barriers of the body like skin or intestinal mucosa, the TLRs recognize them and initiate an immune response. The TLRs include TLR1, TLR2,…

Why is sugar bad for you? part 2. Insulin is a very important hormone in the body. It is made by the pancreas and allows the body to use glucose from carbohydrates and it maintains blood sugar levels from getting too high or low. Since eating promotes blood sugar levels to rise, your pancreas signals insulin to release into the bloodstream. Then, the insulin links to your cells and absorbs sugars. If you have excess sugar in your body than it requires, insulin aids in storing sugar in liver and…

Without disease, we would not be as evolved as we are today. Throughout evolution’s progress, humankind have encountered many devastating or life-altering diseases. In 2007, Dr. Sharon Moalem published Survival of the Sickest in which he explored the theory that certain diseases actually helped us as a species in the long run. Using eight case studies, Dr. Moalem set forth the benefits of disease and their contribution to new medical research. Three of these case studies are selected here:…

The process of natural selection makes it so organisms with characteristics further suitable to their environment outlive and reproduce more than those with less suitable characteristics. This process helps ensure that each generation becomes increasingly adapted to their surroundings so that they can ultimately live longer and increase population sizes. At first glance, diseases are the exception to this principle since they seem to be unfavorable attributes that have somehow continued to pass…

heart, liver, skeletal muscles, kidney endocrine and even respiratory systems [10, 11]. Immunologically, mitochondrial respiration is critical in T cells activation and CD8 T cell memory development, B cells lymphoma development, M1 macrophages differentiation and macrophage phagocytosis [12, 13]. Mitochondrial respiration and its dysregulation were closely related to oxidative stress, which are associated with asthma, COPD, cystic fibrosis and acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) [14].…