Showing posts with label cell wall. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cell wall. Show all posts

Friday, December 21, 2012

AMAZING GLYCOCALYX
CELL SUGAR COATING!

One of the wonders of the cell is its sugar coating.  Indeed this fine layer of mostly sugar component serves many functions to the cell.  From adhesion to other cells to providing signals to the surrounding milieu.  It is given to that sugar coating the responsibility to find the cell location in our tissues during global positioning in the embryo, sperm locating of the egg to fertilize, and recognition of bacteria passing by in the blood.
Glycocalyx, the sugar coat of the cell, plays a major role in cancer, it is one of the ways the immune system recognizes the early change of a normal cell to a cancer cell.  If changes in Glycocalyx are not striking enough to be noticed by our immune surveillance, cancer will be allowed to survive.  The other change of course involves the receptors on the cellular membranes.
How well our immune system detects the change depends on the status of that immune system, and how big of a change has occurred to the Glycocalyx as a result of malignant transformation.  Studying the changes in receptors and Glycocalyx can help us locate and selectively hit the cancer cell while sparing the normal cell.
Sugar coating glycocalyx !