Wednesday, June 18, 2008

how do neutrophils distingish between chemotactic cues?

If you're a neutrophil (unlikely, but still), you're often bopping around the blood and lymph. Your migration is somewhat random, but you might be 'attracted' to move towards different stimuli: a bacterial chemoattractant would be most interesting (since you are a neutrophil and thus a soldier of the innate immune system), but you might be 'distracted' by other chemoattractants (often secreted by other immune cells). Well, how would you distinguish between cues? A smart dude named Bryan Heit, whom I have had the pleasure of meeting, tells us how. Check it out.

Edit: and here is a link to a preview of this article by Dan Billadeau, who does pretty awesome work himself on cytoskeletal dynamics in T cells.

3 comments:

Annie said...

Ahhhh the link doesn't work! Fix it! I NEED TO LEARN ABOUT NEUTROPHILS!!!

santosh said...

it might not work if you are not using a computer with a subscription to Nature Immunology. Get more academic, Annie. =)

santosh said...

but the preview should work regardless.