Question: are there any dagerous cells in your body

Matthew Tomlinson answered on 18 Nov 2013:

Hi maxyboy

Normally in the body there aren’t any cells which are dangerous, however any cell has the potential to become dangerous because DNA mutations can cause them to become cancerous. There are also lots of diseases where the body starts attacking itself, for example multiple sclerosis is a disease where the immune system starts attacking the nervous system because of confusion about what is part of the person and what isn’t. These illnesses are called autoimmune disorders and can be really nasty.

Another example of the immune system attacking cells is in transplants, this is because each cell has a protein on it that is like a bar code, this allows the immune system to recognise what is part of the body and what isn’t because we all have our own bar codes. If people have a transplant from somebody whose bar code is too different to their own the immune system will attack the transplanted cells because it thinks they are invading. This can cause major problems and is why people have ‘matched’ donors whose immune system is similar to their own when having a transplant.

I hope this answers your question!