Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
Micrograph showing hemosiderin-laden alveolar macrophages, as seen in a pulmonary hemorrhage. H&E stain. An alveolar macrophage, pulmonary macrophage, (or dust cell) is a type of macrophage, a professional phagocyte, found in the airways and at the level of the alveoli in the lungs, but separated from their walls. [1]
Macrophages are diffusely scattered in the connective tissue and in liver (Kupffer cells), spleen and lymph nodes (sinus histiocytes), lungs (alveolar macrophages), and central nervous system (microglia). The half-life of blood monocytes is about 1 day, whereas the life span of tissue macrophages is several months or years.
They are also called pulmonary macrophages, and dust cells. Alveolar macrophages also play a crucial role in immune responses against viral pathogens in the lungs. [25] They secrete cytokines and chemokines, which recruit and activate other immune cells, initiate type I interferon signaling, and inhibit the nuclear export of viral genomes. [25]
Regardless of active or passive smokers, macrophage accumulation is found in the lungs. [3] [5] The diagnostic methods for smoke-related diseases include bronchoalveolar lavage which can also be used for examining smoker's macrophages in addition to augmented inflammatory cells in the alveolar lumen. [1]
During the years that followed after Aschoff had originated the concept of RES, research on macrophages and their role as phagocytes steadily increased, and in 1960 the concept of the mononuclear phagocyte system was proposed to denote all cells identified as macrophages. The cells of MPS, by way of their common functional signature as ...
Mucociliary clearance (MCC), mucociliary transport, or the mucociliary escalator describes the self-clearing mechanism of the airways in the respiratory system. [1] It is one of the two protective processes for the lungs in removing inhaled particles including pathogens before they can reach the delicate tissue of the lungs.
Macrophages are found in essentially all tissues, [4] where they patrol for potential pathogens by amoeboid movement. They take various forms (with various names) throughout the body (e.g., histiocytes, Kupffer cells, alveolar macrophages, microglia, and others), but all are part of the mononuclear phagocyte system.
A siderophage is a hemosiderin-containing macrophage. Heart failure cells are siderophages generated in the alveoli of the lungs of people with left heart failure or chronic pulmonary edema, when the high pulmonary blood pressure causes red blood cells to pass through the vascular wall. [1] Siderophages are not specific of heart failure.