AUTHOR=Thunström Salzer Anna , Niemiec Maria J. , Hosseinzadeh Ava , Stylianou Marios , Åström Fredrik , Röhm Marc , Ahlm Clas , Wahlin Anders , Ermert David , Urban Constantin F. TITLE=Assessment of Neutrophil Chemotaxis Upon G-CSF Treatment of Healthy Stem Cell Donors and in Allogeneic Transplant Recipients JOURNAL=Frontiers in Immunology VOLUME=9 YEAR=2018 URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/immunology/articles/10.3389/fimmu.2018.01968 DOI=10.3389/fimmu.2018.01968 ISSN=1664-3224 ABSTRACT=

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 ex vivo 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, in vitro 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.