Neutrophil swarming

An example of neutrophil swarming behavior by neutrophil extracellular traps. The neutrophil (green) surround branches of the Aspergillus Fumigatus (light blue) in infected lung tissue in a swarming manner and transport the branches to the neutrophil aggregates on the left. The dark blue color indicates lung tissue and the red color indicates DNA.

Neutrophil swarming is a type of coordinated neutrophil movement that acts in response to acute tissue inflammation or infection.[1] The term comes from the swarming characteristics of insects that are similar to the behavior of neutrophils in response to an infection. These processes have mostly been studied in tissues of mice and studies of mouse ear tissue has proved to be very effective at observing neutrophil movement. Neutrophil swarming typically aggregates at surface layers of tissue so the thin nature of the mouse ear tissue makes for a good model to study this process.[2] Additionally, zebrafish larvae have been used for the study of neutrophil movement mainly because of their translucence during the first few days of their development. With transgenic lines that fluorescently label zebrafish neutrophils, the cells can be tracked by epifluorescence or confocal microscopy during the course of an inflammatory response.[3] Through this method, specific subpopulations of neutrophils can be tracked and their origin and fate during the induction and resolution of inflammation is observed. Another advantage for using zebrafish to study neutrophil swarming is that adaptive immunity for this organism does not develop until around 4 weeks of age. This allows for the study of neutrophil movement and other host immune responses independent of adaptive immune responses.[4]

  1. ^ Tan SY, Weninger W (February 2017). "Neutrophil migration in inflammation: intercellular signal relay and crosstalk". Current Opinion in Immunology. 44: 34–42. doi:10.1016/j.coi.2016.11.002. PMID 27951434.
  2. ^ Chtanova T, Schaeffer M, Han SJ, van Dooren GG, Nollmann M, Herzmark P, et al. (September 2008). "Dynamics of neutrophil migration in lymph nodes during infection". Immunity. 29 (3): 487–96. doi:10.1016/j.immuni.2008.07.012. PMC 2569002. PMID 18718768.
  3. ^ Henry KM, Loynes CA, Whyte MK, Renshaw SA (October 2013). "Zebrafish as a model for the study of neutrophil biology". Journal of Leukocyte Biology. 94 (4): 633–42. doi:10.1189/jlb.1112594. PMID 23463724. S2CID 23670200.
  4. ^ Dixon G, Elks PM, Loynes CA, Whyte MK, Renshaw SA (2012). "A method for the in vivo measurement of zebrafish tissue neutrophil lifespan". ISRN Hematology. 2012: 915868. doi:10.5402/2012/915868. PMC 3403168. PMID 22844608.