• Question: Have you ever seen the process of phagocytosis occur with a microscope?

    Asked by Jose-Osuna to Carmen, Daniel, Laura, Noel, Steph on 12 Mar 2015.
    • Photo: Carmen Denman

      Carmen Denman answered on 12 Mar 2015:

      Hi Jose,

      Yes, I’ve seen phagocytosis under the microscope. I’ve also made videos of bacteria living and replicating inside phagocytic cells called macrophages. Microscopy is a very cool tool to enable really ‘seeing’ your science happening in real time!

      Carmen

    • Photo: Noel Carter

      Noel Carter answered on 13 Mar 2015:

      Yes. I have done some work with a horse pathogen called Rhodococcus equi. It causes Pneumonia in foals. It works because when it gets phagocytosed by macrophages it has the ability to survive inside the macrophage instead of getting destroyed. So we have taken macrophage cells and mixed them with R. equi and we can see the bacteria inside the cells.

    • Photo: Stephanie Dyson

      Stephanie Dyson answered on 13 Mar 2015:

      If you are interested in seeing this for yourself just go on youtube and search for phagocytosis. There are tonnes of videos out there that you can watch 🙂

      Steph

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