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Valentine Special Cell Stories……

Happy valentine’s day and lots of love

to all the pathology lovers!!!

Welcome to my “valentines’ day” special blog of

cell stories- because every cell has a story to tell….

So, as the love is in the air, let us all celebrate this special occasion with the cell which hangs around lovingly around almost all tissues of the body, who is so charming that it traps practically every organ with its secretions (fibres), just like a spiderman!!! So dependable that it forms the meshwork on which every cell & tissue grows and finally like a good lover provides a life time of commitment to all the tissues and organs because without the ground substance that it produces it is impossible for any cell to thrive…

Yep!!! That is the fibroblast, whichis the most predominant cell of the connective tissue…

These cells are the textile manufacturers,that is they secrete the most important fibre of the body, which makes the basic structure & skeleton of course those are the “collagen fibers” ….

Textile Manufacturers

Collagen Fibers

Fibroblast and collagen fibres are each other’s identity… “The true made for each other”…

Fibroblast like a great solicitor (every girl or boy desires) is responsible for the growth of the tissues and healing of the wounds & injuries that may have occurred…

Fibroblasts have unique property of contractility and can travel (have motility) for remodelling of the connective tissue and repair of wounds by the production of collagen fibres and then contracting the wound size…

When, the injuries have caused more destruction these cells acquire the “superhero” activity…. They transform themselves into “smooth muscle like” cells and become “myofibroblasts” which increase their contractile properties for tissue/ wound shrinkage…

The fibroblast after serving the tissues and organs remain in the resting or quiescent stage. At this stage which is common for the cell, the cell is elongated or spindle shaped.The entrapped fibroblast which is the fibrocyte is stellate (star) shaped with multiple projections to communicate with the adjacent cells. These inactive cells have darker cytoplasm and a dark blue coloured (close faced) nucleus as the chromatin inside the nucleus of the resting cell is condensed….

In contrast, when the fibroblast gets signals through various growth factors like EGF, FGF, PDGF, TNF’s etc that are responsible for the proliferation of fibroblasts, the cells acquire oval shape, pale staining nucleus and greater amount of cytoplasm because the cell organelles increase in amount (the cell wears its costume) and gets ready for the synthesis of collagen fiber!

Fibroblast is indeed a superhero (spider man cell) because it is a one-man army!

Fibroblast

I sing so much for this cell because within a single organ system, there can be a great variety of functions right from extra cellular matrix production, resolution of the matrix to reepithelization and even stem cell properties…. Its plasticity, flexibility (motility) & diverse roles make every single body process dependent on it and the fibroblast tirelessly and most lovingly serves as the “building block” cell of our body!