Show Your Teeth

Phagocytes are immune cells with a big appetite. They usually engulf whole pathogens, but this phagocyte has been fooled – placed over a glass plate loaded with tempting antibodies it stretches out over something it can never consume. This ‘frustrated’ phagocytosis allows researchers to peek at the molecular machinery involved, poking a microscope into the opening 'jaw' of a phagocyte. A technique called iPALM highlights its skeleton of tiny actin filaments that rearrange to form rings of pointy structures called podosomes – sometimes known as phagocytic teeth – used to latch onto targets at the beginning of phagocytosis. Rainbow colours highlight actin fibres at different depths, giving researchers hints to the 3D structure of podosomes, that future drug treatments may influence to improve the fight against disease-carrying pathogens.

Written by John Ankers

John Ankers

Writer

A former researcher in systems biology, John is now an online biology tutor and professional coach supporting the wellbeing of scientists and NHS professionals. He's writing, too, of course.

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• Image from work by J. Cody Herron, Shiqiong Hu and Takashi Watanabe, and colleagues
• University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, USA
• Image originally published with a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
• Published in Nature Communications, July 2022