ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Zymosan

Ok, so imagine you’re playing with some building blocks. You have some red blocks, some blue blocks, and some green blocks. Now imagine that you’re trying to build a big tower, but you need some glue to stick all the blocks together. That’s kind of like what happens in your body when you get a cut or a scrape. Your body has special cells called white blood cells that help to fight off germs that could make you sick.

One kind of white blood cell is called a macrophage, which is like a really strong and tough builder. When there’s a cut or a scrape, the macrophages get to work building a wall of blocks to protect your body from germs. But they don’t just use blocks – they also use little sticky things called zymosan to hold everything together.

Zymosan is kind of like a really strong glue that helps the macrophages build a wall to protect you from germs. It’s made from pieces of the cell walls from certain kinds of fungi, which are like tiny mushrooms. So when a macrophage needs to build a wall to protect you from germs, it uses zymosan to stick everything together just like you would use glue to stick your building blocks together.

So basically, zymosan is a special kind of sticky stuff that helps your body fight off germs when you get a cut or a scrape. It’s kind of like the glue that holds everything together to make sure you stay healthy.