Neutrophils are the first responders of the body's defense system. Neutrophils rapidly localize to areas of acute infection and phagocytize bacteria. Their cytoplasmic granules contain proteases and they are capable of generating reactive oxygen intermediates to kill the invading organism. Neutrophils are the most abundant white blood cell in circulation but they have a half life of only 1-2 days.

Neutrophils from Astarte Biologics are isolated from freshly obtained blood via negative selection and cryopreserved within a few hours of collection.

Be sure to review the instructions for thawing neutrophils as these cells require special handling. Instructions can be found on our protocol page at thawing neutrophils.

The figure at left shows phagocytosis of fluorescently labeled bacteria by neutrophils following the protocol listed here.  The grey histogram is cells with no bacteria, the blue histogram represents cells with non-opsonized bacteria and the red histogram shows cells that have ingested opsonized bacteria.  Many thanks to Kristy Katzenmeyer, Ph.D. of the University of Washington for allowing us to display her data.

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