Question

"Cells form tissues, and tissues form organs, and organs form organ systems. You will need to identify the tissue, organ and organ system that your cell is part of. You will also need to explain the function at each level. "

That's one of the criteria for my cells assignment. I'm doing the White Blood Cell, and I'm a bit stuck on what to do..help would be greatly appreciated. :)
I'm in year 8.

Answer 1

There are a couple of types of WBCs. White blood cells respond to infection and provide protective defenses for the body, and as such, they are part of the immune system. The tissue that WBCs are a part of could be blood or immune system, depending on your course (both are true!). The organ would be immune system, which is both a widely-distributed system (when WBCs are circulating in blood) and localized to within other organs and tissues such as lymph nodes, thymus gland, spleen, and bone marrow.

How much detail do you need?

Some sources: http://lifesci.rutgers.edu/~babiarz/bloodtx.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_blood_cell (good pictures and a table of types of WBCs)

I happen to think eosinophils are the coolest looking type of WBC - they are involved in responses to allergies and also parasites.

Answer 2

Wow! Thanks. Reading now :)

Answer 3

That helped a lot! Other answers would be great; need as much information as I can get! :)

Answer 4

I was just wondering,, since there are 5 types of white blood cells (neutrophils, basophils, eosinophils, monocytes and lymphocytes), do they all have different tissues and organs? If they do, a table of their tissues/organ name/organ system would be great.

Answer 5

Sort of... All of them circulate within the blood, so they are all found in ALL organs, and they are all produced in the bone marrow, however there are two types of lymphocytes and they mature in different locations. T-lymphocytes mature in the thymus and B-lymphocytes mature in the bone marrow.

In addition, within the lymph nodes, there are germinal centers and mantle regions, where different populations of cells are found (but it's not a sharp demarcation, and it's not something that you can really recognize if you're looking at it w/o a microscope). However, I suspect this is way too much detail for what you're looking for!

I think the table found on wikipedia with their functions and names would be most applicable. I might also suggest adding a column about how common each type is in circulation as some of them are more or less common in healthy adults. If you google "Cytology and WBC counts" you'll get lots of information.

Answer 6

Perfect :) Thanks for your help.