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Beneficial suicide: why neutrophils die to make NETs

Nature Reviews Microbiology volume 5, pages 577–582 (2007)Cite this article

Abstract

Neutrophils are one of the main types of effector cell in the innate immune system and were first shown to effectively kill microorganisms by phagocytosis more than 100 years ago. Recently, however, it has been found that stimulated neutrophils can also produce extracellular structures called neutrophil extracellular traps (NETs) that capture and kill microorganisms. This Progress article gives an overview of the structure, function and generation of NETs, and their role in infections.

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Figure 1: Neutrophils and neutrophil extracellular traps (NETs).
Figure 2: The steps leading to neutrophil extracellular trap (NET) formation.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Volker Brinkmann is at the Microscopy Core Facility, Max Planck Institute for Infection Biology, Charitéplatz 1, Berlin 10117, Germany.,

    Volker Brinkmann

  2. Arturo Zychlinsky is at the Department of Cellular Microbiology, Max Planck Institute for Infection Biology, Charitéplatz 1, Berlin 10117, Germany.,

    Arturo Zychlinsky

Authors
  1. Volker Brinkmann
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  2. Arturo Zychlinsky
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Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Volker Brinkmann or Arturo Zychlinsky.

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The authors declare no competing financial interests.

Related links

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DATABASES

Entrez Genome Project

Staphylococcus aureus

group A Streptococcus

Streptococcus pneumoniae

Shigella flexneri

Salmonella typhimurium

Candida albicans

Entrez Protein

interleukin (IL)-8

C5a

lymphocyte-function-associated antigen 1

FURTHER INFORMATION

Arturo Zychlinsky's homepage

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Brinkmann, V., Zychlinsky, A. Beneficial suicide: why neutrophils die to make NETs. Nat Rev Microbiol 5, 577–582 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrmicro1710

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