I never understood this concept in medical school, but now I figured I'd put this to rest. I've asked many professors this question, but I seem to get more confused from the explanations. It's probably something very obvious I'm missing, but I don't know what it is.
When they say splenetic patients need to 'watch out' for encapsulated bugs (like s. pyogens, with it's capsule compopsed of M protein), i understand it's because the spleen is involved in removing these bugs from circulation. my understanding was that it does this, by coating these bugs with antibodies, which then get 'seen and plucked out' by the spleen (isn't this sort of like opsonization... and if it is, then i thought the M protein avoided opsoniztion, and therefore avaoided phagocytosis by splenic macrophages)
it's probably not that important, but this has always bugged me. does anybody have an explanation for this?
When they say splenetic patients need to 'watch out' for encapsulated bugs (like s. pyogens, with it's capsule compopsed of M protein), i understand it's because the spleen is involved in removing these bugs from circulation. my understanding was that it does this, by coating these bugs with antibodies, which then get 'seen and plucked out' by the spleen (isn't this sort of like opsonization... and if it is, then i thought the M protein avoided opsoniztion, and therefore avaoided phagocytosis by splenic macrophages)
it's probably not that important, but this has always bugged me. does anybody have an explanation for this?