Scientists Discover Massacre: "Killer" Cells Kill Innocent Cells
The scientists found that a quarter of the progenitor cells in the testes were “killed” by phagocytes, despite the fact that these cells weren’t doing anything “wrong.” University of Haifa research has identified killer cells. A process involving the “killing” of newly generated living cells has been discovered for the first time in a recent study conducted at the University of Haifa. Research, described in a respectable journal Science Advances found that during the process of cellular differentiation in fruit flies, phagocytic cells consume and destroy healthy living cells. “We found that phagocytes can function as ‘killers.’ It is known that phagocytic cells engulf and dissolve dead cells, but we demonstrated for the first time that they also kill newly created normal cells. Basically we have characterized a novel mechanism of cell death. The more we know the mechanisms of cell death, the better we understand how to treat various diseases, especially cancer,” explains Professor