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Open Access
Copyright: The authors. This article is an open access
article licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0) which permits unrestricted use,
distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the work is properly
cited.
Review Article
15. Neutrophils in Tuberculosis: will the code
be unlocked?
- K Karthik, M Kesavan, P Tamilmahan,
M Saravanan
and
M Dashprakash
Vet World. 2013; 6(2): 118-121
doi:
10.5455/vetworld.2013. 118-121
Abstract
Tuberculosis is a devastating disease throughout
the world both in humans and animals. Its history
is vast, which dates back to era of Robert Koch.
There is a huge amount of immunological studies in
the aspect of tuberculosis but there remain many
unanswered questions. Neutrophils, cells of First
line defence are being neglected in tuberculosis.
Macrophages are considered as the key player in
case of tuberculosis. Researches reveal that
neutrophils play some interesting roles; it can be
called as a bi-directional weapon. It plays
instrumental role in killing mycobacterium,
recruiting macrophages and also works hand in hand
with macrophages in order halt the spread of the
organism. Neutrophils also activates innate
immunity, secretes some substances like ectosomes,
which favour in trapping the mycobacterial
organisms. Whether neutrophils drills the
mycobacterium or gets succumbed to it depends on
the stage of infection. Neutrophils at times act
like a suicidal bomber, by carrying the organisms
to different organs and spreading the infections.
In chronic cases they are also implicated to
granuloma formation, the classic sign of TB.
Keywords: granuloma, Mycobacterium
tuberculosis, neutrophil, trojan horse
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