Neutrophil extracellular traps in bacterial infections and evasion strategies

Ahmed Adel Baz; Huafang Hao; Shimei Lan; Zhangcheng Li; Shuang Liu; Shengli Chen; Yuefeng Chu

doi:10.3389/fimmu.2024.1357967

Neutrophil extracellular traps in bacterial infections and evasion strategies

Front Immunol. 2024 Feb 16:15:1357967. doi: 10.3389/fimmu.2024.1357967. eCollection 2024.

Authors

Ahmed Adel Baz^{1

2

3

4

5}, Huafang Hao^{1

2

3

4}, Shimei Lan^{1

2

3

4}, Zhangcheng Li^{1

2

3

4}, Shuang Liu^{1

2

3

4}, Shengli Chen^{1

2

3

4}, Yuefeng Chu^{1

2

3

4}

Affiliations

¹ State Key Laboratory for Animal Disease Control and Prevention, College of Veterinary Medicine, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou Veterinary Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Lanzhou, China.
² Gansu Province Research Center for Basic Disciplines of Pathogen Biology, Lanzhou, China.
³ Key Laboratory of Ruminant Disease Prevention and Control (West), Ministry of Agricultural and Rural Affairs, Lanzhou, China.
⁴ Key Laboratory of Veterinary Etiological Biology, Ministry of Agricultural and Rural Affairs, Lanzhou, China.
⁵ Botany and Microbiology Department, Faculty of Science, Al-Azhar University, Assiut, Egypt.

Abstract

Neutrophils are innate immune cells that have a vital role in host defense systems. Neutrophil extracellular traps (NETs) are one of neutrophils' defense mechanisms against pathogens. NETs comprise an ejected lattice of chromatin associated with histones, granular proteins, and cytosolic proteins. They are thought to be an efficient strategy to capture and/or kill bacteria and received intensive research interest in the recent years. However, soon after NETs were identified, it was observed that certain bacteria were able to evade NET entrapment through many different mechanisms. Here, we outline the recent progress of NETs in bacterial infections and the strategies employed by bacteria to evade or withstand NETs. Identifying the molecules and mechanisms that modulate NET release will improve our understanding of the functions of NETs in infections and provide new avenues for the prevention and treatment of bacterial diseases.

Keywords: DNase; NETs evasion; bacterial infection; mycoplasma; neutrophil; neutrophil extracellular traps.

Publication types

Review
Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Bacterial Infections*
Chromatin
Cytosol
Extracellular Traps*
Humans
Neutrophils

Substances

Chromatin

Grants and funding

The author(s) declare financial support was received for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. This research was supported by grants from the National Key Research and Development Plan of China (2022YFD1800903), The National Natural Science Foundation of China (32373019 and 31402223), the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Science and Technology Key Project (CAAS-ASTIP-JBGS-20210701). The funders had no role in study design, data collection, analysis, publishing decisions, or manuscript preparation.