The Immune System’s Weirdest Weapon
Every drop of pus that’s squeezed out of the human body is a squidgy mess—a souvenir of an infection gone awry, a reminder to never eat off-color custard again. It is also a wartime memorial, dedicated to the corpses of the many thousands of microscopic soldiers that once teemed within. The fallen are neutrophils: stalwart immune cells that throng in the blood by the mind-boggling billions, waiting to rush to sites of injury or infection as a first line of defense.
Maybe it’s their short life span; maybe it’s the fact that they’re the main ingredient in pus. For whatever reason, neutrophils have a history of being slandered as inessential grunts. They are by far the most abundant white cells in the blood, among the first immune cells to sally forth into battle, and among the first to perish in the fight that follows. They are, by definition, dispensable, replaceable, and almost absurdly common, noted more by biologists for their propensity to die than for the roles they play in keeping us alive.
But that’s a regrettable miscasting of a superpowered cell. Neutrophils are more Cylons than through vessels , and are flexible enough to that span less than an eighth of their width. They are that can help ; too, and shape the fate of the immune cells that follow them.
