Observations on the motile behavior of individual neutrophils from a patient with recurrent bacterial infections

A technique for determining the velocity of individual neutrophils and a standard chemotactic assay were used to study the motile behavior of neutrophils from a patient with recurrent bacterial infections.A chemotactic assay under agarose showed that the abnormal neutrophils were deficient in nondirected and directed movement and that neither the patient's serum nor plasma was inhibitory to normal neutrophil movement.Microscopic study of individual neutrophils showed that the movement morphology and velocity of the patient's neutrophils were abnormal.Cells from the patient failed to orient or to show cytoplasmic flow.The mean velocity of the patient's neutrophils was 2.6 jzm/min (controls 11.9), and the range was 0-7.0 im/min (controls 2.0-21 .0) .The velocity of normal neutrophils in the patient's plasma was not decreased and the velocity of the patient's neutrophils was not increased by ascorbic acid, carbamylcholine, or dibutyryl cyclic GMP.While the cause of decreased neutrophil movement was not defined, no abnermality of neutrophil adherence, glucose oxidation, or actin polymerization was found.The results of this study indicate that observation of individual cells to determine the morphology and velocity of cell movement may enhance our understanding of factors that affect neutrophil movement.