Immunity: basal cell importance (Introduction)

by David Turell , Monday, January 21, 2019, 17:37 (2134 days ago) @ David Turell
edited by David Turell, Monday, January 21, 2019, 17:49

They are a tiny portion of immune cell types, but they act to call for an inflammatory reaction at the site of infection:

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2019-01-secret-sepsis-rare-cell.html

"'As one of the rarest cell types in the body, basophils make up less than 1% of a person's white blood cells," said Piliponsky, an associate professor of pediatrics at the University of Washington School of Medicine. "Scientists have long suspected that basophils can enhance the immune defense against a bacterial infection although there was no scientific proof of this role prior to our study."

"To examine the basophils' contribution to the immune response, the researchers used a model of bacterial infection and sepsis that closely resembles the progression and characteristics of human sepsis in genetically-modified mice.

"Their studies showed that basophils were one of the first types of immune cell to appear at the infection site. The presence of basophils not only enhanced inflammation at the early stages of an immune response to infection and improved survival in mice, but did this in part by releasing a protein known as tumor necrosis factor (TNF).

"As a major player in the immune response to an infection, TNF sends the signal to other cells causing them to switch into high gear and generate the inflammatory response that is vital to protecting and healing damaged tissue. Its presence in this research adds to mounting evidence that basophil-derived TNF plays a major role in the first stages of the immune system's defense against an infection, and indicates that a reduced basophil presence or a deficiency in factors regulated by basophils can lead to sepsis.

"'These findings show that basophils, despite their low numbers, can trigger a cascade of events that both helps them to initiate an immune response against infection and enhances the effectiveness of this response," wrote Piliponsky and his co-authors in the paper. "Together, these findings provide novel insights into how basophils, and basophil-derived TNF, might have key roles in the early stages following bacterial infections and in resisting the progression of such infections to sepsis."

Comment: The basal cells automatically release TNF to call in the rest of the cells that cause inflammation. The term inflammation comes from the red appearance of tissue caused by a delivery of more blood to the area by dilation of vessels. The basal cells act as scouts. This shows that different white cells are designed for different jobs. Since infectious organisms have existed since the beginning of life (think bacteria) an immune mechanism had to designed into some of those bacteria and also into multicellular organisms when they first appeared. Uncontrolled killing infections would have ended life.