Cont’d…
In the beginning of the infection at the cut site, all invaders are treated the
same. Macrophages eat individual
germs. If the number of invaders are
very small most of the time the macrophages can take care of it on its
own. This stops a major infection from
starting but usually when they are not able to destroy all the germ invaders, they
get the help from other cell defenders.
After macrophage eats up a germ, it takes the most unusual pieces of the
germ, called antigens. The macrophage now
needs to report its findings and the unusual pieces to a dendritic cell that is
patiently waiting inside the lymph for such an eventuality. Note that communication of such information
are very quick within the body. This
dendritic cell then takes the antigen, like ID tags from the macrophages and reports
the information to the inactivated helper T-cells and B-cells. The
T-cell then activates and makes more and more copies of itself.
The first defender, the T-cells, is a type of T-cell which is
called the helper and it acts like a ‘commander’ of your immune system
army. It normally knows what kind of
invader it’s dealing with. It decides
whether a war is needed and how strong and thus the T-cell activates into a
full-fledged commander. A plan of action
will be made. Sometimes the danger is
great. During times like these, the body
has another special fighters, just like wrestlers come in different age and
weight classes to match an opponent, some T-cells are made for certain
germs. The special fighter T-cells in
your immune system are called killer T-cells.
The helper T-cells go into the lymph node and find the one killer T-cell
that matched to the invader and call them into the fight. Thereafter, these cells activate and jump
into action and follow the patch of cytokines to the injury and begin the
full-scale attack against the germs. The
activated killer T-cells scans all the skin cells around the cut and try to
find the special antigen that marks invader cells. The antigen can even alert them to the
invader if it’s hiding inside of one of your skin cells. Once the antigen is found near the cut site,
these killer T-cells shoot out cytotoxins that immediately destroy the antigen
and any skin cell it has infected.
Thereafter, the macrophage then comes and gobbles up the dead,
germ-filled skin cells and keep your system clean.
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The lymphatic system has
a special route through which immune cells can move around the body. The major parts of this system included the
lymph nodes, the thymus, spleen, tonsils, and bone marrow. In these organs, immune cells grow, multiply,
or are recycled, keeping the immune system running. Lymphatic vessels alongside your veins
delivering immune cells throughout the body
