What cells are part of innate immunity?

Question

Please provide the name and general function of known cell types.

Answer 1

Innate immunity is considered the first defense in the immune biological system. The first defense is supposed to prevent infection from invading pathogens.

Barriers include skin, earwax, and mucus (these are just some examples). These barriers prevent the pathogens from entering the body and infecting cells.

However, if the pathogen gets into the body, leukocytes are the next defense system in innate immunity. These cells include:

Neutrophils are similar to kamikaze bombers. When a pathogen invades, they are the first to the target, and will blow up. The membrane creates a sticky net to trap the pathogen. When you have an infection and you see pus, the pus is often a mixture of dead neutrophils and pathogens.

Basophils will release enzymes to improve blood flow, so that immune cells can reach the infection site faster.

Macrophages engulf pathogens and stimulate other immune cells in the vicinity.

Natural Killer Cells kill pathogenic infection cells or aberrant cells like cancer.

Mast cells will release granules and are often a major cause of allergy inflammation.

eosinophils are specialized in defense against parasites, however they will exacerbate allergy inflammation with the release of granules.

Dendritic cells engulf pathogens and present the antigens on the surface to T cells to initiate adaptive immunity.