When a disease-causing agent enters an organism, the immune system alerts which specialized cells?
Answers
wbc [white blood cells]
Answer: The correct answer is White Blood Cells.
When a disease-causing agent enters an organism, the immune system alerts white blood cells ( WBCs). They are also called as leukocytes. Different types of WBCs include- Neutrophils, eosinophils, macrophages, basophils, and lymphocytes.
They help in protecting the body from infection by clearing any foreign particle or pathogenic agent. For doing so, there can be primarily two ways- Specific response and Non-specific response.
For example: Macrophages provide the non-specific response by ingesting the disease-causing organism (like bacteria) through a process called as phagocytosis. After ingestion, they form phagolysosome which digests the pathogen and destroy it ( using hydrolytic enzyme). They are therefore called as phagocytes.