This question arises because I saw that monocytes and leukocytes are commonly ca

Question

This question arises because I saw that monocytes and leukocytes are commonly called 'mononuclear cells' in the scientific literature. The implication of course being that other immune sub-types are multi-nuclear!

I know of granulocytes (e.g. neutrophils) that are classed as 'polymorphonuclear' because their nuclei are segmented, and can alter their shapes, and muscle cells that fuse together to form one long cell (muscle fiber) with multiple nuclei. What other examples of multi-nucleated cells are there?

I am also interested in the advantages gained by cells having multiple (or segmented) nuclei?

Explanation / Answer

Muscle cells are the only cells I know of that are polynuclear. With respect to monocytes, a concise review of their nomenclature can be found in this paper by L Ziegler-Heitbrock, P Ancuta, S Crowe, et al. (Blood, 2010). Apparently it has had quite a complex and confused biochemical characterization, but the article states the name indeed derived from its single lobed, mononuclear morphology. This is in distinction to other phagocytes which have multi-lobular nuclei (polymorphonuclear cells).

With respect to advantages, a multinucleated cell makes sense when the speed of intracellular signalling is important (e.g., calcium diffusion). It may also be useful in the case of cells when the cell needs to coordinate the synthesis of large amounts of protein.

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