Ordinarily there are very few tuft cells present but they have been shown to greatly increase at times of a parasitic infection.
[2] Several studies have proposed a role for tuft cells in defense against parasitic infection.
[5] The human gastrointestinal (GI) tract is full of tuft cells for its entire length.
Colocalization of synaptophysin and DCLK1 were found in the duodenum, this suggests that these cells play a neuroendocrine role in this region.
Tuft cells that are positive in this kinase are important in gastrointestinal chemosensation, inflammation or can make repairs after injuries in the intestine.
Due to this, tuft cells act as danger sensors and trigger a secretion of biologically active mediators.
IL-13 then interact with uncommitted epithelial progenitors to affect their lineage selection toward goblet and tuft cells.
[7] Tuft cells were identified for the first time in the trachea and gastrointestinal tract in rodent, due to their typical morphology, by electron microscopy.
The characteristic tubulovesicular system and apical bundle of microfilaments which are connected to tuft by long and thick microvilli, reaching into the lumen, gave them their name.
Helminth colonization inducts a type-2 immune response, causes mucosal healing and achieves clinical remission.
This shows that tufts cells are important in playing a protective role during the helminth infections.
In the microscope he found a cell with a bundle of unusually long microvilli rising into the intestinal lumen.
In rodents, they have been definitively been found: for example, in the trachea, the thymus, the glandular stomach, the gall bladder, the small intestine, the colon, the auditory tube, the pancreatic duct and the urethra.
In the mouse gall bladder and rat bile and pancreatic duct, the tuft cells are more abundant but still isolated.