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White blood cells can migrate through the endothelium, a layer of cells that lines blood vessels, in a process called diapedesis. This helps fight infection, but inhibiting diapedesis can lead to more difficult-to-treat infections.
Blood vessels are lined with the endothelium, a layer of cells that tends to protect blood cells from migrating out of the cells. However, injury or trauma can cause white blood cells to migrate through the endothelium. This process is called diapedesis.
As a result of this condition, white blood cells become part of the interstitial fluid, which surrounds blood vessels and tissue cells in the body. White blood cells may exhibit diapedesis to fight infection in the tissue surrounding blood vessels. The blood vessels themselves provide an integrated pathway for diapedesis when needed.
When white blood cells slow down, they can slip through tiny spaces in the endothelium, called interendothelial spaces, which widen in response to chemicals that the body produces in greater numbers during an infection or traumatic injury. The slowing of blood cells is also caused by a release of chemicals, which causes white blood cells to fight back to deal with the infection.
Some of the swelling from injury or infection is caused by diapedesis. White blood cells are intensely active, because in addition to destroying bacteria, they also work to form a barrier around an infection that can help prevent the rest of the body from becoming infected. In small localized infections, this effect can be very helpful. In larger infections, the migratory infection can overwhelm the migratory white blood cells.
The cells mainly involved in this process are neutrophils and cytokines. Neutrophils are like an emergency response team. They are the first to arrive through diapedesis at the site of an infection. In the first 24 hours of an infection, inflammation tends to be the result of massive amounts of neutrophils filling the site.
Persistent inflammation is usually filled with various leukocytes and cytotenes. Also, long-term inflammation tends to show white blood cells other than neutrophils, which can only live for a few days outside of blood vessels.
A rare autoimmune disease called leukocyte adhesion deficiency can endanger the process. With this condition, the body fails to display a chemical response to slow down white blood cells, so diapedesis cannot occur. Inhibiting this natural process in the body causes more infections that are difficult to treat because diapedesis does not occur normally. Sometimes a bone marrow transplant can help restore the body’s normal chemical response, thus promoting more regular diapedesis in response to infection.
