Anyone who has ever eaten a rancid food-truck taco has a gut-level feeling for what it’s like to have the human immune system launch a full-scale attack along 30 feet of intestinal tract. Now you can watch this fascinating process at a microscopic level, pain free, thanks to a new animation posted by Nature: Immunology.
Watching it makes me appreciate the amazing complexity of the human immune system. It also serves as a graphic reminder of how much easier it is to understand these processes when you can see them in action.
Readers interested in irritable bowel syndrome might want to skip to minute 4:00, where the animation shows what happens when pathogens sneak past the gut’s protective mucosal barrier. Spoiler alert: Watch out for the "voracious phagocyte" and the "NETosis explosion."
Previously: The dawn of a new era in microbiology, Study shows intestinal microbes may fall into three distinct categories and A social networking service for digestive health?
