Full-body defense does not always look the way textbooks say it should. In planarian flatworms, a newly identified cell type appears to protect the body by bursting apart, releasing a lethal chemical blast that can kill nearby bacteria and damaged cells in minutes. The cells, called ruptoblasts, do not fit the usual picture of immune cells drawn from the classic white-blood-cell lineage. Instead, the work points to a very different branch of bio…
Israeli researchers have identified a new type of immune cells, unknown so far, called "ruptoblasts", which protect the body through an eruption, Ben-Gurion University of Negev announced.