• Question: How do the neutrophils get confused as we age?

    Asked by 459utec24 to Hannah on 21 Jun 2015.
    • Photo: Hannah Greenwood

      Hannah Greenwood answered on 21 Jun 2015:


      Think of a neutrophil as car with a built in sat nav. When the sat nav is working, the car knows where its going, takes the shortest route and gets to the destination quickly. But what happens when the sat nav gets confused? The car gets a bit lost along the way takes a longer route meaning it takes longer to get there.
      That’s what happens with our neutrophils, as we get older, they are still able to move but they get more and more confused and take longer to get to their destination (the site of infection). We think that this is the reason that older adults experience more bacterial infections – the bacteria have a greater chance to make themselves at home before out immune system get involved.

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