Take 2:
Pathogens: bacteria, viruses, proteins, parasites, fungi...
First line of defence in our bodies are: the skin, the mucous membranes, the stomach acid and the like.
Second line:
- Inflammatory responses - bringing fluids and various fighter cells to the area of conflict.
- Phagozytes - eats up pathongens.
Phagocytes has receptors ("super sensors") that responds to things that are bad. Bacteria has proteins on their surface that the phagocytes will recognize as bad, and so the phagocyte will connect to that bacteria, and fully encapsulate it. The phagocyte is now called a phagozome. The phagozome will now "digest" the bacteria, break it apart to proteins, and in so doing, killing it. Then a Major Histocompanility Complex type 2 (MHC II) will take one of the proteins from the digested bacteria and present it on the surface of the phagozome for others to learn about what it has just killed.
Many phagocytes are called: "Antigen presenting cells" because they do this.
Three types of phagocytes:
- Neutrophils - fast and abundant
- Macrophages
- Dendrites
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Relates to ME
I have no idea yet, but maybe autoimmunity among other things is the phagocytes eating things that they shouldn't.