Crossword clues for phagocyte
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Phagocyte \Phag"o*cyte\, n. [Gr. ? to eat + ? a hollow vessel.] (Physiol.) A leucocyte which plays a part in retrogressive processes by taking up (eating), in the form of fine granules, the parts to be removed.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
1884, from German phagocyten (plural), coined in German in 1884 by Dr. Elias Metchnikoff (1845-1916) from Greek phago- "eating, devouring" (see -phagous) + -cyte (see cyto-). Related: Phagocytosis.
Wiktionary
Etymology 1 n. (context cytology English) A cell of the immune system, such as a neutrophil, macrophage or dendritic cell, that engulfs and destroys viruses, bacteria and waste materials, or in the case of mature dendritic cells; displays antigens from invading pathogens to cells of the lymphoid lineage. Etymology 2
vb. (context transitive English) to phagocytose
WordNet
n. a cell that engulfs and digests debris and invading microorganisms [syn: scavenger cell]
Wikipedia
Phagocytes are cells that protect the body by ingesting ( phagocytosing) harmful foreign particles, bacteria, and dead or dying cells. Their name comes from the Greek phagein, "to eat" or "devour", and "-cyte", the suffix in biology denoting "cell", from the Greek kutos, "hollow vessel". They are essential for fighting infections and for subsequent immunity. Phagocytes are important throughout the animal kingdom and are highly developed within vertebrates. One litre of human blood contains about six billion phagocytes. They were first discovered in 1882 by Ilya Ilyich Mechnikov while he was studying starfish larvae. Mechnikov was awarded the 1908 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his discovery. Phagocytes occur in many species; some amoebae behave like macrophage phagocytes, which suggests that phagocytes appeared early in the evolution of life.
Phagocytes of humans and other animals are called "professional" or "non-professional" depending on how effective they are at phagocytosis. The professional phagocytes include many types of white blood cells (such as neutrophils, monocytes, macrophages, mast cells, and dendritic cells). 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. 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.
During an infection, chemical signals attract phagocytes to places where the pathogen has invaded the body. These chemicals may come from bacteria or from other phagocytes already present. The phagocytes move by a method called chemotaxis. When phagocytes come into contact with bacteria, the receptors on the phagocyte's surface will bind to them. This binding will lead to the engulfing of the bacteria by the phagocyte. Some phagocytes kill the ingested pathogen with oxidants and nitric oxide. After phagocytosis, macrophages and dendritic cells can also participate in antigen presentation, a process in which a phagocyte moves parts of the ingested material back to its surface. This material is then displayed to other cells of the immune system. Some phagocytes then travel to the body's lymph nodes and display the material to white blood cells called lymphocytes. This process is important in building immunity, and many pathogens have evolved methods to evade attacks by phagocytes.
Usage examples of "phagocyte".
But a moment later he was an integral part of the crowd, indistinguishable from any of the healthy cells in the organism, attracting no interest from the phagocyte militiamen or the other cells beside him.
The wild, half-charlatan Metchnikoff had come out of Odessa in Russia to belch quaint theories about how phagocytes gobble up malignant germs.
From then on he preached phagocytes, he defended their reputations, he did some real research on them, he made enemies about them, he doubtless helped to start the war of 1914 with them, by the bad feeling they caused between France and Germany.
Metchnikoff saw the wandering cells of the water flea, the phagocytes of this creature, flow towards those perilous needles, surround them, eat them, melt them up, digest them.
Universities of Europe, and had he not lectured learnedly to the doctors of Odessa, telling about the phagocytes of the blood, which gobble microbes?
Institute, Professor Metchnikoff can train these little phagocytes to gobble up all microbes?
Metchnikoff came out of the fog of his theory of phagocytes for a moment, and tried to satisfy them by sowing chicken cholera bacilli among the meadow mice which were eating up the crops.
So he asked for a vacation, got it, packed his bag, and went to the Congress of Vienna to tell everybody about phagocytes, and to look for a quiet place in which to work.
Paris his theory of phagocytes would have the prestige of a great Institute back of it.
One old German, Baumgarten, wrote a general denunciation of phagocytes, on principle, once a year, in an important scientific journal.
For twenty years both sides were so enraged they could not stop to think that perhaps both our blood and our phagocytes might work together to guard us from germs.
Metchnikoff and his opponents to the idea that it might be neither the blood nor the phagocytes which are at the bottom of our resistance to some diseases.
Mozart or whistle the symphonies of Beethoven, and sometimes he seemed to be more learned about the dramas and the loves of Goethe than about those phagocytes upon which his whole fame rested.
I shall prove that these microbes inside the phagocytes are still alive!
Metchnikoff forced his opponents to admit that phagocytes, sometimes, can eat vicious microbes.