Priming of Human Neutrophils Is Necessary for Their Activation by Extracellular DNA

Extracellular plasma DNA is thought to act as a damage-associated molecular pattern causing activation of immune cells. However, purified preparations of mitochondrial and nuclear DNA were unable to induce neutrophil activation in vitro. Thus, we examined whether granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor (GM-CSF) acting as a neutrophil priming agent can promote the activation of neutrophils by different types of extracellular DNA. GM-CSF pretreatment greatly increased p38 MAPK phosphorylation and promoted CD11b/CD66b expression in human neutrophils treated with mitochondrial and, to a lesser extent, with nuclear DNA. Our experiments clearly indicate that GM-CSF-induced priming of human neutrophils is necessary for their subsequent activation by extracellular DNA.