When pathogens invade or tumor cells emerge, the immune system is alerted by danger signals that summon a key battalion of first responders, the unsung heroes of the immune system—a population of starfish-shaped sentinels ...
(Medical Xpress)—Nothing raises the hackles on the neck of a neurobiologist like talk of dendritic spines on neurons. These little outcroppings of membrane and contractile tissue adorn the long apical tendrils of excitatory ...
Scientists have found an experimental small molecule that induces a form of cell death to kill a variety of cancers while enhancing the power of the immune system and leaving healthy cells totally unscathed.
Researchers at Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, China, have discovered that shutting down part of the innate immune system increases anti-tumor activity.
There's no question that tumor cells are notoriously skilled masters of immune disguise and, in many ways, real-life versions of what it's like hiding under the fictional invisibility cloak highlighted in the Harry Potter ...
An obscure class of molecules, part of the vast system that helps the human body distinguish "self" from "non-self," may also hold the key to stopping SARS-CoV-2 from commandeering healthy cells, scientists have found in ...
Within the human brain, neurons perform complex calculations on information they receive. Researchers at MIT have now demonstrated how dendrites—branch-like extensions that protrude from neurons—help to perform those ...
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(Medical Xpress)—Among the most abundant of the immune system's first responders, neutrophil granulocytes comprise up to 75 percent of the body's white blood cells. During the acute phase of inflammation, neutrophils migrate ...
(Medical Xpress)—The well-behaved neuron receives signals through its many dendrites to generate spikes on a single axon. The electrical energy of these signals is generally believed to be integrated at the cell body and ...
(Medical Xpress)—Once the brain has fully developed, its neurons and astrocytes remain relatively fixed. There are a few select migratory streams that replenish vulnerable populations with dedicated stem cell recruits, ...
Dendritic cells (DCs) are immune cells that form part of the mammalian immune system. Their main function is to process antigen material and present it on the surface to other cells of the immune system, thus functioning as antigen-presenting cells.
Dendritic cells are present in small quantities in tissues that are in contact with the external environment, mainly the skin (where there is a specialized dendritic cell type called Langerhans cells) and the inner lining of the nose, lungs, stomach and intestines. They can also be found in an immature state in the blood. Once activated, they migrate to the lymphoid tissues where they interact with T cells and B cells to initiate and shape the adaptive immune response. At certain development stages they grow branched projections, the dendrites, that give the cell its name. However, these do not have any special relation with neurons, which also possess similar appendages. Immature dendritic cells are also called veiled cells, in which case they possess large cytoplasmic 'veils' rather than dendrites.
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