The AbOx pathway in human neutrophils: Antibodies generate both hydrogen peroxide and ozone during the water-oxidation pathway which are bactericidal in combination and which makes immunoglobulins the third enzyme in the microbicidal pathway of neutrophils, after the phagocyte oxidase (Phox) and myeloperoxidase (MPO). Inset is an electron micrograph of an E. coli bacterium killed by the antibody-catalyzed water-oxidation pathway. There is remarkable simile in the morphology of cell wall and membrane rupture to that of when bacteria are phagocytosed. |