What Are White Blood Cells | Health | Biology | FuseSchool

Blood consists of red blood cells, white blood cells, platelets and plasma.

White blood cells are our warriors; the army inside our body that protects us from infectious disease and foreign invaders. They make up less than 1% of our blood.

Our body has a first line of defence, which we saw in the video on ‘bodies defence against pathogens’, but when this fails our white blood cells kick into action.

White blood cells are the cells of our immune system. There are two types of white blood cell; phagocytes and lymphocytes.

Phagocytes have a multi-lobed nucleus within cytoplasm. They are made in your bone marrow, and they actively seek out and engulf bacteria. They will even squeeze out of the blood, through capillary walls, to reach infected tissue. There are different types of phagocytes, with neutrophils being the most common.

Lymphocytes are formed in lymph nodes, which are found all around the body such as in your armpits and neck. Invading pathogens contain a chemical on their surface called antigens. The lymphocytes detect this and produce antibodies in response to it. The antibodies stick to the surface of the pathogen and kill it by either making it easier for phagocytes to ingest them, or making the pathogen burst, or by making the pathogens clump together which turns them into a sticky mess and again makes it easier for phagocytes to find them.

Each antibody is very specific; it will only attack one type of bacteria. Other lymphocytes produce antitoxins which combine with the invader’s toxins and make them harmless.

Sometimes the body cannot produce antibodies naturally or fast enough, and so we can have vaccinations to help us out. We will look at vaccinations in another video.

SUBSCRIBE to the FuseSchool YouTube channel for many more educational videos. Our teachers and animators come together to make fun & easy-to-understand videos in Chemistry, Biology, Physics, Maths & ICT.

VISIT us at www.fuseschool.org, where all of our videos are carefully organised into topics and specific orders, and to see what else we have on offer. Comment, like and share with other learners. You can both ask and answer questions, and teachers will get back to you.

These videos can be used in a flipped classroom model or as a revision aid.

Find all of our Chemistry videos here:
   • Complete & Incomplete Combustion | Environ...  

Find all of our Biology videos here:
   • The Lymphatic System | Physiology | Biolog...  

Find all of our Maths videos here:
   • Видео  

Twitter:   / fuseschool  

Access a deeper Learning Experience in the FuseSchool platform and app: www.fuseschool.org
Follow us:    / fuseschool  
Friend us:   / fuseschool  

This Open Educational Resource is free of charge, under a Creative Commons License: Attribution-NonCommercial CC BY-NC ( View License Deed: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/b... ). You are allowed to download the video for nonprofit, educational use. If you would like to modify the video, please contact us: [email protected]