Pores open the door to death

Tuesday, September 16, 2008 - 12:07 in Biology & Nature

Our body is almost constantly being threatened by pathogens and cancerous cells that appear out of the blue. But the body puts up a fight: specialized cells in the immune system smuggle small molecules (granzymes) into cancer cells and those body cells that have fallen prey to viruses. The molecules then trigger off the diseased cells' built-in suicide program. There are two possible ways in which the granzymes gain entry into the cells under attack.

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