Neutrophils - How The Immune System's ATVs Get Around
Neutrophils are a type of white blood cell and are summoned to fight infections or injury in any tissue or organ in the body, regardless of cellular and biochemical composition. How do neutrophils, the body's all terrain vehicles, move in these confined spaces? A team from Brown University's School of Engineering and the Department of Surgery in the Warren Alpert Medical School collaborated find out. Their technique involved two hydrogel sacks sandwiched together with a minuscule space in between. Neutrophils could be placed in that space, mimicking the confinement they experience within tissue. Time-lapse cameras measure how fast the cells move, and traction force microscopes determine the forces the cells exert on the surrounding gel. read more