Click B to spawn a Plasma Cell Click M to spawn a Macrophage Click T to spawn a Helper T-Cell Click K to spawn an Natural Killer Cell (NKC) Click O to spawn a Monocyte The types of cells and what they do is in the notes and credits box below.
HUGE thanks to vikingphoe939 and pusheenbao for the immune system sprites. Tiny change: Antibodies are no longer super OP. The huge orange cell is a macrophage, an upgraded version of the monocyte. It can eat about 75-100 pathogens before it dies. The red cells with three blue lobes in them are the neutrophils, which are being generated in the bone and are going to the site of infection. The red and purple cells with the little dots on them are B-cells, or more specifically, plasma cells. They mass produce Y-shaped antibodies that only bind to certain pathogens with the matching antigens. Then there are T-cells These are the cells with the yellow tentacles. Most of them call for other white blood cells to come join the fight, some are Cytotoxic T-cells that kill off infected body cells. The ones here are Helper T-Cells that activate all the other immune cells. The green cells with the little spikes are the Natural Killer Cells (Yes, that's their real name), or NKCs. They are special in the sense that they have the ability to kill your own cells if they are infected or cancerous. How do they tell this? A normal healthy cell produces a protein called Major Histocompatibility Complex 1, or MHC class 1 for short. But, if a cell is infected or cancerous, it can stop making that protein. And if an NKC detects a defective cell, it pokes it with an enzyme that triggers apoptosis, or controlled cell death. Pretty cool. Next, the purple cells with the yellow nucleus are the monocytes. They are phagocytes that patrol the blood and every so often pop out of the blood vessels to examine the area. Normally, they are called as cleanup cells to remove pus and dead cells from the battlefield. But, if a monocyte is able to bind to a pathogen, it completely engulfs it, gets activated, and transforms into a macrophage or dendritic cell. The dendritic cell is the pink cell that takes samples of the pathogens and heads to the lymph nodes to activate the T-Cells. Finally, there are the complement proteins. The one on the left of the menu is C3b. It's main job is to cripple the invaders and make them helpless. Here, they slightly push back the pathogens to represent that. Then there's C3a, which is the one in the middle of the menu. It calls in macrophages to kill the pathogens. Finally, the one on the right is C5a. It would normally help in the construction of a membrane attack complex, a protein megastructure that pokes holes into the invaders, bleeding them to death.
