Are cytokines part of the innate or adaptive immune system? While cytokine production mainly occurs when the body is infected by a pathogen, cytokine-induced inflammatory responses also happen when tissues are physically damaged, such as if you tripped and cut your knee on the sidewalk. Blood vessels will then leak blood into the surrounding tissue, allowing immune cells to travel via the leaked fluid to the damaged area, and start the healing process. Cytokines help inflame tissue by directing the cell walls of blood vessels to become more porous by reducing cell-to-cell contact, Ford said. One of the immune responses cytokines may elicit is inflammation. 'The initiation of cytokine secretion tells the rest of the immune cells, and also non-immune cells in the body that there is a pathogen present, and an immune response should be occurring,' Ford said.

That cell directs all the other cells by creating and sending out messages (cytokines) to the rest of the organs or cells in the body (the orchestra members), which then respond as directed. The first immune cell to notice the pathogen is like the conductor. When a pathogen, or harmful invader enters the body, immune cells, cytokines and organs respond by working together like an orchestra, Ford said.

Are molecules smaller than cells