Max Planck Institute for Infection Biology

2 ARTICLES PUBLISHED IN JoVE

Immunology and Infection

Neutrophil Extracellular Traps: How to Generate and Visualize Them

Volker Brinkmann¹, Britta Laube¹, Ulrike Abu Abed^1,2, Christian Goosmann^1,2, Arturo Zychlinsky²

¹Core Facility Microscopy, Max Planck Institute for Infection Biology, ²Cellular Microbiology, Max Planck Institute for Infection Biology

Neutrophil Extracellular Traps (NETs) are an important innate immune mechanism to fight pathogenic bacteria, fungi and parasites. Here we describe methods to isolate neutrophil granulocytes from human blood and to activate them to form NETs. We present preparation techniques to visualize NETs in light and electron microscopy.

Medicine

Immunofluorescence Labelling of Human and Murine Neutrophil Extracellular Traps in Paraffin-Embedded Tissue

Ulrike Abu Abed^1,2, Volker Brinkmann¹

¹Microscopy Core Facility, Max Planck Institute for Infection Biology, ²Cellular Microbiology, Max Planck Institute for Infection Biology

Neutrophil extracellular traps (NETs) are three-dimensional structures generated by stimulated neutrophil granulocytes. It has become clear in recent years that NETs are involved in a wide variety of diseases. Detection of NETs in tissue may have diagnostic relevance, so standardized protocols for labelling NET components are required.