MICROANATOMY

Detailed explanation-1: -phagocyte, type of cell that has the ability to ingest, and sometimes digest, foreign particles, such as bacteria, carbon, dust, or dye. It engulfs foreign bodies by extending its cytoplasm into pseudopods (cytoplasmic extensions like feet), surrounding the foreign particle and forming a vacuole.

Detailed explanation-2: -Macrophages and neutrophils (phagocytes) are the front-line defenders in your body’s immune system. They seek out, ingest, and destroy pathogens and other debris through a process called phagocytosis.

Detailed explanation-3: -Neutrophils engulf microbes only as they move over them, in a ‘vacuum-cleaner’ type of behaviour. This context-dependent nature of phagocytosis by neutrophils should be of particular relevance to human infectious diseases, especially for the early phase of encounter with microbes new to the host.

Detailed explanation-4: -Monocytes, macrophages, and neutrophils are phagocytes. A phagocyte is a type of white blood cell.