A Chemical Bomb Exits the Sally Port

Science News:

Jordan Orange of the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and colleagues used a superpowerful new microscope to watch how immune cells called natural killer cells feed a poison pill called a lytic granule to tumors or virus-infected cells. Scientists used to think a big hole in the middle of a dense mesh of spaghetti-like molecules called F-actin let granules stream out of the natural killer cell. But the new study, published online September 13 in PLoS Biology, shows that the meshwork parts just enough to let single lytic granules pass, with F-actin helping squeeze the granule through. People with immune deficiency disorders may have defects that prevent lytic granules from exiting the natural killer cell.