What is phagocytes ??//
Answers
Phagocytes are cells that protect the body by ingesting (phagocytosing) harmful foreign particles, bacteria, and dead or dying cells. Their name comes from the Greekphagein, "to eat" or "devour", and "-cyte", the suffix in biology denoting "cell", from the Greek kutos, "hollow vessel".[1] They are essential for fighting infections and for subsequent immunity.[2] Phagocytes are important throughout the animal kingdom[3] and are highly developed within vertebrates.[4] One litre of human blood contains about six billion phagocytes.[5] They were first discovered in 1882 by Ilya Ilyich Mechnikov while he was studying starfish larvae.[6] Mechnikov was awarded the 1908 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his discovery.[7] Phagocytes occur in many species; some amoebae behave like macrophage phagocytes, which suggests that phagocytes appeared early in the evolution of life.[8]
Phagocytes of humans and other animals are called "professional" or "non-professional" depending on how effective they are at phagocytosis.[9] The professional phagocytes include many types of white blood cells (such as neutrophils, monocytes, macrophages, mast cells, and dendritic cells).[10] The main difference between professional and non-professional phagocytes is that the professional phagocytes have molecules called receptors on their surfaces that can detect harmful objects, such as bacteria, that are not normally found in the body.[11] Phagocytes are crucial in fighting infections, as well as in maintaining healthy tissues by removing dead and dying cells that have reached the end of their lifespan.
Natural Killer Cell is the best example of this type of cells. In this we see large granular lymphocyte cells. At the tume of process apart from the phagocytes, another type of cells called Natural killer cells kills virus infected cells and tumour cells of body by creating perforin lined pores in the plasma membrane of target cells or on infected cells. Lastly water comes through these pores causing swelling and bursting of the diseased cells.