Most Things Biology

The Cell as the Scene

Time To Read

1–2 minutes

Date Last Modified

OVERVIEW

PART 1

PART 2

PART 3

PART 4

PART 5

PART 6

PART 7

Quiz

3

CHART CLUE

The inflammasome is intracellular, pyrin lives in neutrophils, and microtubules – colchicine’s target – are part of the cytoskeleton. The transport half of the module finally explains Stina’s swelling, how an ion channel can trigger inflammation, and how a pump handles colchicine.

The Story

Everything so far points to one cell type: the neutrophil, the immune system’s foot soldier. Inside it, a protein called pyrin sits waiting to do its job. To understand what goes wrong, we zoom in to the cell’s outer boundary – the fluid-mosaic membrane that decides what gets in and out. It looks simple. It is anything but.

From Stina’s chart: She always pictured her attacks as something done to her from outside. The harder truth is that the trouble started inside her own immune cells — the neutrophils meant to protect her.

Compare Stina’s uninfected appendix to an infected appendix.

Activity:

Activity:

A bilayer blocks most things. So how do signals and ions get across? Through the membrane’s proteins.

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Gatekeepers – Membrane Proteins

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