A ground-breaking image showing how white blood immune cells attack tumours was revealed this week by scientists at The University of Manchester.
The images exposed how cells change their surface molecules when activated by protein found on tumours or viral infections.
Immune cells are natural killers and fight against infections and cancer. However, due to the limitations of light microscopy, scientists have failed to understand how the cells differentiate between those that are healthy or diseased – until now.
Professor Daniel Davis, Director of Research at the Manchester Collaborative Centre for Inflammation Research (MCCIR), said: “This is the first time scientists have looked at how these immune cells work at such a high resolution.
“We have shown that immune cells are not evenly distributed as once thought, but instead they are grouped in very small clumps – a bit like if you were an astronomer looking at clusters of stars in the Universe and you would notice that they were grouped in clusters.’’
Using high quality super-resolution fluorescence microscopy the team viewed blood samples to capture still images of the cells. The images are to be published in the journal Science Signalling.
Professor Davis added: “We studied how these clusters or proteins change when the immune cells are switched on – to kill diseased cells.
“Looking at our cells in this much detail gives us a greater understanding about how the immune system works and could provide useful clues for developing drugs to target disease in the future.”
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