Cellular Chronicles: Inside the Body's Battle Against Malaria

 “Good morning my beloved people, I am news reporter ‘mini shraddha’, and today’s special has a covering of the horrifying situation in our host body. The body has been infected by something and none of the soldiers have seen this enemy before, there is an environment of havoc in the body. The soldiers are ready to fight but they don’t have the strength to. Very few soldiers are alive and active, as the drought and famine, along with the constant ‘stress hormone rains’ has really taken a toll on them. Apparently, their host body isn’t taking enough rest, is constantly stressed and is skipping her meals. The brain is always busy coordinating with eyes and ears to grasp as much as they.”

‘It must be the exam’, says Macroman, the Macrophage.

Source: Microbe Notes

“Hey, Macroman, wipe off those things from your face, you’re live on camera. Everyone in the body will be seeing this. Maybe it may even reach to cornea, brain and scrotum if they have connectivity.”, replies, Minisha, which is a pet name given to mini-Shraddha. She is disgusted as Macroman is very messy eater, he always has these various remains of pathological carcass on and around his face. Apparently, he calls that fashion, just like some other weird dudes, like B-cell, and Dendri, the Dendritic cell. They call themselves the elite ‘APC Squad’. There are other two cell types like them, who are also having such appearance, Monoman, the monocyte and Mr. Langerhan, in the skin and mucosa. And somehow, such appearance is very attractive to all those tall helper T-girls. They come with their pretty and unique necklaces, which they call their TCR and always hangs out with these dudes. Everyone wonders what is so unique in them, that they always go to them. Only the (cyto)-toxic T-girls goes to the other cells. If people can get attracted to torn and ribbed clothes and call it fashion then apparently these cells of APC Squad can also call their pathogen carcass accessories, a fashion.

“I wonder what sort of place that be. When I grow up, I wish to make a big bungalow in the brain and don’t worry I will invite all of my friends to stay there”, said Neutri, the neutrophil.

“Don’t you know that we are not allowed to be present in those places. Those are the sacred, privileged sites and our entry is a NO NO”, replied the NK, while being busy organising his puzzle and always trying to find the right pattern. His obsession with such molecular patterns is so bad that scientists have been busy trying to understand his behaviour. But NK requires a lot of PAMP-ering, he can be a real cry baby sometimes.

“Guys, give me attention now, I am recording!” cried Minisha, trying to tackle the chaos. “Okay, now all of you gather around me and when the camera man signals, I will ask each one of you, your favourite war story. I don’t think anyone would be interested in watching my cover of famine and stress.”, she continues while gesturing everyone to gather.

Everyone stood behind her in attention, showcasing their spirit and identity as the mighty immune responders of the body. As the cameraman signals, Minisha starts speaking, “Hello again my favourite viewers from round the body, greetings to all of you. We are now going to meet some of the great warriors of our body. First is our beloved B-Cell. So ‘B’, please tell us your favourite war incident when you fought off your enemy.”. B comes to the front with battle scars on his body and says, “You know, I was given a lot of love in the Bone Marrow, by the stromal cells. They gave me just the right environment for making me who I am today. I never had to ask for anything, I was always supplied with abundant cytokines that give me this beautiful capability to be an esteemed member of the APC society. To talk about my favourite war story hit me with a lot of nostalgia. My family has this business going on for more than two decades now. We see the invader, and hold it tight with our Antibodies. We are so sharp that we can identify soluble and particulate, both the types of Antigens. We are not MHC restricted like those T-girls, who always comes to us, and my friends here. So, it was long back, in a similar kind of situation like now, when there was constant ‘stress hormone rains’, famine and no dark hours, our host decided to take a trip without taking time to recover. So, we didn’t get time to rejuvenate. And I don’t exactly remember, where the host went, but eyes sent a message that there were a lot of mosquitoes. Some Anopheles must have bit her, and then began our havoc. There were a lot of sporozoites in the bloodstream and it caught all of our attention. We rushed, made our formations and attacked and won like champions. We were happy that this little thing was not that big of a task. And while we were celebrating our win, we were flabbergasted to know that somehow that might little potently escaped us and evaded our response. It was sitting and multiplying in the liver. We all rushed and saw that they formed thousands of copies and were having an evil grin on their faces. Some of our soldiers were already there, fighting with all their might. But I understood that this is not going to be easy. The war actually begun then. Because of our war, the host also had to suffer. She had chills, fever, nausea, fatigue, cramps and what not. But we didn’t give up. We stood there and fought till we evaded each one of them, and wore their remains as our medals after we caught and engulfed them.”

B stood there proudly as Neutri interrupted, “Indeed it was such a fight. Initially all my phagocytic friends and I began killing them. And started ringing the ‘siren of invasion’ and even released a lot of cytokines. Some of which activated other warriors, as they always have to be told when to act. And they also joined us. The task became easy then.”

B didn’t like this Neutri’s interruption and wanted to continue, “Yes, Yes, You also did a very good job. And a big thankyou to all my friends of Phago-society that never lose hope and truly showcasing their bravery. To continue my anecdote, after we wore our medals. We signalled all the T-girls by cytokines. They immediately came and recognised the Antigen I wore as a medal. It bound to my MHC II and got activated, with its eyes open and shining as if it was seeing everything in her mind that just happened. She immediately made a lot of calls and called a big army of a different types of cells. She truly showed what a hero she is. She released a lot of cytokines like INF- gamma, and activated macrophages, and enhanced Th1 response. She then released TNF- alpha and amplified the immune response and recruited a lot of other immune cells, IL-2, to increase proliferation of her sister T-cells. IL-17 to recruit neutrophils. And while she was doing this, she didn’t forget about taking care of the host and also released IL-10 to dampen the immune response if it gets excessive.” Every cell around B, nodded in agreement and started murmuring about what a time it was.

B stood proudly and continued, “this success story isn’t mine or T’s alone. It was possible because a lot of different types of cells. All of my friends that contributed equally, bravely and never stepped back from their duties. Their industrious nature is the reason we have been able to keep the host happy and healthy. You see, some of my friends, and myself are always surveiling the system in case of breach. Others are our BSF-Border Security Force, and serve as barriers in preventing the entry of such pathogens. Some are regulatory, some are multilobed, some are a little aggressive and some are very diverse in its function, everyone is one of a kind. We are a live example of the beauty of the nature, and life. We are the warriors of the body.”