Collection: White Blood Cells

White blood cells, also known as leukocytes, are important in keeping us healthy and are responsible for killing pathogens such as bacteria. One way that white blood cells eliminate pathogens is to "eat them" (phagocytosis). White blood cells need to move from the blood stream to sites of infection and to do this they can change their shape to migrate through the walls of small blood vessels.

There are five types of white blood cell split into two main categories; Granulocytes (including Neutrophils, Eosinophils and Basophils) and Agranulocytes (including Lymphocytes and Monocytes). Each type of white blood cell has a different appearance. For example, neutrophils are 12-14 µm in diameter (bigger than red blood cells) and have a single multilobed nucleus while monocytes can be even larger, up to 20µm in diameter, and have a large eccentrically placed nucleus, which is kidney bean shaped.