Chemotaxing neutrophils enter alternate branches at capillary bifurcations

Xiao Wang, Mokarram Hossain, Ania Bogoslowski, Paul Kubes and Daniel Irimia ()
Additional contact information
Xiao Wang: BioMEMS Resource Center, Department of Surgery, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Shriners Burns Hospital
Mokarram Hossain: Department of Physiology and Biophysics, University of Calgary
Ania Bogoslowski: Department of Physiology and Biophysics, University of Calgary
Paul Kubes: Department of Physiology and Biophysics, University of Calgary
Daniel Irimia: BioMEMS Resource Center, Department of Surgery, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Shriners Burns Hospital

Nature Communications, 2020, vol. 11, issue 1, 1-12

Abstract: Abstract Upon tissue injury or microbial invasion, a large number of neutrophils converge from blood to the sites of injury or infection in a short time. The migration through a limited number of paths through tissues and capillary networks seems efficient and ‘traffic jams’ are generally avoided. However, the mechanisms that guide efficient trafficking of large numbers of neutrophils through capillary networks are not well understood. Here we show that pairs of neutrophils arriving closely one after another at capillary bifurcations migrate to alternating branches in vivo and in vitro. Perturbation of chemoattractant gradients and the increased hydraulic resistance induced by the first neutrophil in one branch biases the migration of the following neutrophil towards the other branch. These mechanisms guide neutrophils to efficiently navigate through capillary networks and outline the effect of inter-neutrophil interactions during migration on overall lymphocyte trafficking patterns in confined environments.

Date: 2020
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-15476-6 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:11:y:2020:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-020-15476-6

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-020-15476-6

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().