White blood cells exit blood vessel at hotspots
News
The vascular wall does not look the same everywhere on the inside, but has specific places for specific actions. That is what PhD student Max Grönloh and collegues at the Molecular Cell Biology Lab of Jaap van Buul have published in EMBO Reports.
The study shows that white blood cells, key players in the immune system, use hotspots to leave the vessel wall. These hotspots are important to prevent leakage of blood vessels. The fewer spots in the vascular wall are penetrated by white blood cells, the smaller the chance that a blood vessel will leak.
This knowledge could contribute in the future to treatments for diseases such as Inflammatory Bowel Disease and Rheumatoid Arthritis, in which the migration of white blood cells, the leakage of blood vessels, or both, are not well regulated.
Congrats to Max Grönloh and the team!
Read the full article on embopress.org.
