Assessment of Neutrophil Chemotaxis Upon G-CSF Treatment of Healthy Stem Cell Donors and in Allogeneic Transplant Recipients

• Published in: Frontiers in immunology 2018-09, Vol.9, p.1968-1968
• Main Authors: Thunström Salzer, Anna, Niemiec, Maria J, Hosseinzadeh, Ava, Stylianou, Marios, Åström, Fredrik, Röhm, Marc, Ahlm, Clas, Wahlin, Anders, Ermert, David, Urban, Constantin F
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: allogeneic transplant; chemotaxis; granulocyte colony stimulating factor (G-CSF); hematopoietic stem cell donor; hematopoietic stern cell donor; Immunology; neutrophil
• ISSN: 1664-3224; 1664-3224
• DOI: 10.3389/fimmu.2018.01968

Neutrophils are crucial for the human innate immunity and constitute the majority of leukocytes in circulation. Thus, blood neutrophil counts serve as a measure for the immune system's functionality. Hematological patients often have low neutrophil counts due to disease or chemotherapy. To increase neutrophil counts and thereby preventing infections in high-risk patients, recombinant G-CSF is widely used as adjunct therapy to stimulate the maturation of neutrophils. In addition, G-CSF is utilized to recruit stem cells (SCs) into the peripheral blood of SC donors. Still, the actual functionality of neutrophils resulting from G-CSF treatment remains insufficiently understood. We tested the functionality of neutrophils isolated from blood of G-CSF-treated healthy SC donors. We quantified chemotaxis, oxidative burst, and phagocytosis before and after treatment and detected significantly reduced chemotactic activity upon G-CSF treatment. Similarly, treatment of previously untreated neutrophils with G-CSF led to reduced chemotactic activity. In addition, we revealed that this effect persists in the allogeneic SC recipients up to 4 weeks after neutrophil engraftment. Our data indicates that neutrophil quantity, as a sole measure of immunocompetence in high-risk patients should be considered cautiously as neutrophil functionality might be affected by the primary treatment.