What is pulmonary macrophage?

Macrophages are immune system cells that "eat" invaders and dead cells Macrophages can be roaming, or located in the lungs and other infected parts of the human body Pulmonary macrophages are responsible for cleaning up intrusions that pass through the nose and throat barriers and enter the lung surface Human immunity is composed of many cells and molecules, each of which has a special function One group of immune cells is called white blood cells, and macrophages are part of that group The role of macrophages is to ingest what is considered a foreign body and to remove debris from dead host cells It does this by swallowing When macrophages swallow things, they use enzymes to break them down into manageable molecules Macrophages can move around, making it easier to get targets Lymph and blood provide a pathway for some macrophages to move Some stay in one place, and pulmonary macrophages are an example Macrophages form before they reach the lungs The first step of pulmonary macrophages is to form monocytes in the bone marrow, another type of white blood cell Monocytes circulate in the blood and move to other tissues only after they mature into macrophages The reason some macrophages stay in the lung is that the lung is the only way for infectious agents such as bacteria or viruses to enter the body Diaphragms and compounds in the nose, mouth and respiratory tract filter out microbes, while pulmonary macrophages try to kill survivors Depending on the number of invaders, there can be millions of macrophages in a person's lungs ready to devour the invaders, but millions of new macrophages can arrive to help when an infection occurs In the lung, macrophages either live on the surface of the lung as pulmonary macrophages, or move into the alveoli and become so-called alveolar macrophages The alveoli in the lungs are the compartments in which the body exchanges fresh oxygenated air for exhaust gas and then exhales Pulmonary macrophages can be transformed into alveolar macrophages In addition to discovering and eating damaging cells and foreign microbes, macrophages can also generate signals to tell the immune system what to do next To do this, they display antigens from the outer layers of the ingested cells Other cells, called helper T cells, recognize antigens and then trigger an immune response against infection factors.