View source for Changes in Vascular Adherence

Neutrophils are normally confined to the bloodstream and circulate with the other blood cells. If they are to defend tissues against a microbial invasion, they must leave the bloodstream. in normal tissues, neutrophils are carried along by the flow, like other blood cells. In inflamed tissues these fast-moving cells must slow down, stop, bind to blood vessel walls, and then must leave blood vessels by emigration through the vessel walls. This emigration is triggered by changes both in the endothelial cells that line blood vessel walls and in the neutrophils themselves.