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Macrophage
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The macrophage is a cell of the immune system, and it is the most versatile phagocyte the body has. Phagocyte means a cell that eats other things: it surrounds a particle, a piece of a dead cell or a microorganism and swallows it whole. That process is called phagocytosis. It is the tissue's street sweeper: it clears away dead material and captures what should not be there.
Swallowing it is not enough; it has to be destroyed. Once inside, whatever it engulfed is sealed in a bubble called a phagosome. That bubble fuses with a lysosome, another bubble loaded with digestive enzymes, and those enzymes kill many of the microorganisms that end up there.
The macrophage is not born where it works. It starts out as a monocyte, a white blood cell that travels in the blood, moves out into the tissue and transforms there. Depending on the tissue it settles in, it gets a different name: a Kupffer cell if it lives in the liver, an alveolar macrophage if it lives in the lung.
In brief
The macrophage is the body's most versatile phagocyte: it surrounds and engulfs particles, cellular debris and microorganisms, a process called phagocytosis.
It is the tissue's street sweeper: it clears away dead material and captures what should not be there.
Once engulfed, the organism is enclosed in a phagosome that fuses with a lysosome, whose digestive enzymes kill many pathogens.
It arises from a monocyte that leaves the blood for the tissue, and its name changes with where it lives: Kupffer cells in the liver, alveolar macrophages in the lung.
Sources (2)
- OpenStax, Rice UniversityAnatomy and Physiology 2e, 21.2 Barrier Defenses and the Innate Immune ResponsePublished
- National Center for Biotechnology Information, StatPearls PublishingHistology, Alveolar Macrophages, StatPearlsPublished
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