Neutrophil Chemotactic Distance

Abstract

Neutrophils are the most abundant of granulocytes in blood circulation. They can migrate through the blood vessels directed to site of infection by chemoattractant inducing neutrophil chemotaxis, and then play an important role in microbial phagocytosis. Since neutrophil chemotaxis is important in the innate immune response, the defect of chemotaxis can reduce ability in phagocytosis and cause severe microbial infection. Here we study the chemotaxis of neutrophils. The purpose of this study was to determine the average value of neutrophil chemotactic distance. Neutrophils were isolated from peripheral blood of 20 healthy student volunteers from Medical Technology, Faculty of Allied Health Sciences, Naresuan University. All were 20-25 years old and without inflammation and infection. Cells were isolated by density gradient centrifugation using Polymorphprep^TM. The purified neutrophils were then stimulated by N-formylmethionine-leucyl-phenylalanine (fMLP), an end-target chemoattractant, to observe neutrophil chemotaxis by under agarose assay using dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) as a negative control. The result showed that the average value of neutrophil chemotactic distance is ≥ 1,134 µm (95% CI; 1,134-1,414). This value might be used as neutrophil chemotaxis data which can be applied for further study on neutrophil chemotaxis defect patients such as those with leukocyte adhesion deficiency (LAD), Chediak-Higashi syndrome and hyper-IgE (Job) syndrome.