Latest Phagocytes Stories

Potential approach to treating atherosclerosis and other chronic inflammatory diseases A multicenter team of researchers, including scientists at Columbia University Medical Center (CUMC), Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH), Mount Sinai School of Medicine, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has developed biodegradable nanoparticles that are capable of delivering inflammation-resolving drugs to sites of tissue injury. The nanoparticles, which were successfully tested in mice, have...

The theory that pigeons' famous skill at navigation is down to iron-rich nerve cells in their beaks has been disproved by a new study published in Nature. The study shows that iron-rich cells in the pigeon beak are in fact specialized white blood cells, called macrophages. This finding, which shatters the established dogma, puts the field back on course as the search for magnetic cells continues. "The mystery of how animals detect magnetic fields has just got more mysterious" said Dr...

University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston researchers have discovered previously unsuspected aspects of the guidance system used by the body's first line of defense against infection. The new work focuses on the regulation of immune response by two forms of the signaling molecule IL-8, as well as IL-8's interaction with cell-surface molecules called glycosaminoglycans (or GAGs for short). Infected or injured tissues release IL-8 to attract bacteria- and virus-killing white blood...

Scientists at the University Medical Center in Mainz prove multiple DNA repair defect in monocytes Scientists working with Professor Bernd Kaina of the Institute of Toxicology at the Medical Center of Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz have demonstrated for the first time that certain cells circulating in human blood – so-called monocytes – are extremely sensitive to reactive oxygen species (ROS). They were also able to clarify the reason for this: ROS are aggressive forms of oxygen...

A study from scientists at Queen Mary, University of London, sheds new light on why people who experience serious trauma or go through major surgery, can suffer organ damage in parts of the body which are seemingly unconnected to the injury.The study, published today in Nature Immunology*, examines the way certain white blood cells, called neutrophils move out of blood vessels to defend damaged organs against injury or infection.This is normally a one-way journey but researchers were...

For the first time, scientists have described not only the identities and quantities of fat species in a living mammalian cell "“ in this case, a mouse macrophage or white blood cell "“ but they also report how these lipids react and change over time to a bacterial stimulus triggering the cell's immune response.Writing in the December 17 issue of the Journal of Biological Chemistry, lead author Edward A. Dennis, PhD, distinguished professor of pharmacology, chemistry and biochemistry at...

A new study reveals that two enzymes help immune cells deploy pathogen-killing traps by unraveling and using the chromatin (DNA and its associated proteins) contained in the cells' nuclei to form defensive webs. The study appears online on October 25 in The Journal of Cell Biology (www.jcb.org).Neutrophils, the most common type of white blood cells, are difficult to study because they live for only about six hours. So Arturo Zychlinsky and colleagues, from the Max Planck Institute for...

research published in ScienceResearchers at the University of Calgary Faculty of Medicine are using an innovative new imaging technique to study how white blood cells (called neutrophils) respond to inflammation, and have revealed new targets to inhibit the response.When the body is invaded by infection, the immune system counters by generating inflammation with deployment of white blood cells to the site of danger to kill invading bacteria. However, inappropriate inflammation occurs in the...

Researcher discovers existing drugs can potentially target the disease's ability to spreadOften causing no symptoms in carriers of the disease, worldwide tuberculosis (TB) infects eight to ten million people every year, kills two million, and it is highly contagious as it is spread through coughing and sneezing. "It's a global health disaster waiting to happen, even here in Canada, but this new paradigm in TB research may offer an immediate opportunity to improve vaccination and...

Finding how to block the pathway may lead to new therapies for TB and other disordersScientists have discovered a signaling pathway that tuberculosis bacteria use to coerce disease-fighting cells to switch allegiance and work on their behalf. Epithelial cells line the airways and other surfaces to protect and defend the body. Tuberculosis bacteria co-opt these epithelial cells into helping create tubercles: the small, rounded masses characteristic of TB. The tubercles enable the bacteria to...