Primary Defence Mechanisms 🌟
Skin: Your Knight's Armor!
- Acts as a bodyguard against pathogen entry.
- Outermost Layer: It's like a wall - solid and unyielding. Why?
- Made up of dead cells filled with keratin, a protein. This is like the bricks in the wall.
- Makes it super tough for pathogens to break in.
Real World Example: Imagine your skin as a fortress, and the keratin is the strong bricks of the fortress walls. It's not easy for invaders to breach it!
Sebaceous Glands: The Potion Makers!
- Found chilling around hair follicles.
- Brew a special potion called sebum that does two magical things:
- Keeps skin moisturized.
- Lowers skin's pH (increases acidity) just a bit.
Why is the pH bit cool?
- Many bacteria & fungi are like that one friend who hates spicy food. A low pH (acidic environment) is like super spicy food for them; they can't handle it, and hence, can't grow.
Mucous Membranes: The Soft Protectors!
- These are the skin's sensitive cousins. Soft, thin, and found in intimate spots:
- Vagina, foreskin, head of the penis, and airways leading to the lungs.
- They make a gooey substance called mucus.
- Think of it as a spider web for pathogens. Invaders get trapped in it!
- And once trapped? They either take a free trip to your stomach (when you swallow) or get expelled like unwanted guests at a party.
Bonus Power: Mucus has a secret weapon - the anti-bacterial enzyme lysozyme. It's like having a security guard within the mucus that kicks out bacteria.
Real World Example: Remember the last time you had a runny nose when you caught a cold? That's your mucous membrane working overtime to trap those nasty cold-causing viruses!
