PLATELETS just got a lot more interesting. As well as helping blood to clot, they also play a role in driving immune responses. When bacteria enter blood they rapidly become coated in platelets, says Dirk Busch at the University of Munich in Germany. These sticky cell fragments then direct bacteria to the spleen, where they are engulfed by dendritic cells - immune cells that trigger a full-blown immune response (Nature Immunology, DOI: 10.1038/ni.2140).
