• Question: hi :) How do antibodies get rid of infections and what do the different types of white blood cells do?

    Asked by rachelmcguinness to Amy on 15 Jun 2011. This question was also asked by lisarose, cai192546.
    • Photo: Amy MacQueen

      Amy MacQueen answered on 15 Jun 2011:

      Hi Rachel! Thanks for the question…this is a pretty big question and I don’t know how much detail you want…there are some good resources online that explain the immune system – its worth YOUtube searching for some good videos!

      Anyway, there are many different types of warrior white blood cell in your body. There are a whole host of characters and they all work together to fight disease!

      The stealthy ninja warrior B cell releases antibody missiles to attach to invaders and make them more noticeable to other immune fighters

      The T cell troopers are programmed to fight many different invaders and quickly mupltiply to produce a strong and powerful army.

      The noxious neutrophils swallow the invaders, zap them with deadly chemicals and then blow themselves up (kind of like suicide bombers)!

      And the macrophage munchers swim around the body eating all the dust and germs and taking them to the T cell troopers so they know what to fight!

      So you asked particularly about antibodies – antibodies are pretty cool. They are Y-shaped molecules produced by plasma B cells. Some antibodies are bound to the B cell surface and act as B cell receptors, others are released by the plasma cells into the blood and tissue fluids where they bind to things that they recognise (antibodies are specific – so if you had a packet of smarties and and some antiboides the antibodies that bound to the pink smarties wouldn’t bind the green ones and vice versa!). Some of these antibodies will bind to part of a bacteria or other pathogen that has invaded your body and cause them to clump together. This makes the bug look more tasty (the antibody is sort of like buttering toast!) and white blood cells like macrophages then come in and gobble up the invader!

      Antibody coating of bacteria also causes activation of something called the “complement cascade” – as well as buttering the bacteria for eating this also allows the antibodies to kill bugs directly by attracting bits of the complement system which form a “membrane attack complex”.

      The immune system is complex – but its pretty amazing how it works and we are still discovering new things about it every day!!

      IF you didn’t get any of this or it was too simple/complicated just ask me some more!! Have a fab day!! 🙂

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