Granulocytes

Granulocytes are a group of cells that along with monocytes make up phagocytes which is one of the two groups of white blood cells alongside immunocytes. They consist of three main types of cells called eosinophils, basophils and neutrophils. The main purpose of white blood cells is to defend the body against infection and destroy and invading pathogens. Each different type of white blood cell will have different structure to more effectively carry out their function. The identifiable feature of all granulocytes is that they contain granules in their cytoplasm. The granules are small vesicles that can contain different substances to help the cell carry out its function.

The granules found in granulocytes are small vesicles that can contain

This short life span is not detrimental to them as they have a fast response time for reaching the site of infection where they will self-destruct after a single activity such as phagocytosis and then they will be turned into pus along with other cell debris. Neutrophils have a very easy to recognize structure as they have a dense nucleus with 2 to 5 lobes. Campbell, Lovell and Gorbsky (1995) found that these nuclear lobes are connected to each other by thin strands of nuclear material with allows the cell much more mobility as the increased flexibility in the nucleus would allow the cell to be able to move through smaller areas such as getting through the spaces in capillary walls or endothelial cells. In contrast, a cell with the more common nucleus that just consists of one object than will not be able to move around under pressure would be much more limited in its movement. While it has been suggested that thee lobes cause caused by microtubules or microfilaments this is unlikely as the lobes are still formed when inhibitors for both microtubules and microfilaments are used. Another structural characteristic of neutrophils that aids in its function of destroying any harmful microorganisms is that the neutrophil cells have receptors on them that will interact with the Fc region on the antibodies and allow them to recognise that the microorganism is a

These granules have different contents depending on what function they will assist the neutrophil with. Primary granules are also known as azurophilic granules as they can easily be stained by Romanowsky stain. Neutrophils will destroy any pathogens they come across through the process of phagocytosis, degranulation and NADPH oxidase dependent killing processes. Phagocytosis is the process of engulfing the pathogen that it is trying to destroy to form a vesicle inside the neutrophil called a