How do neutrophils differentiate between different types of chemoattractants?
Our first discovery was how neutrophils tell the difference between end-target and intermediary chemoattractants. Before this study no one knew how this was done – in fact, some groups thought that neutrophils were unable to determine the difference, and essentially were finding bacteria by luck. The problem in understanding how neutrophils identify chemoattractants stems from how neutrophils detect chemoattractants. Neutrophils use G-protein coupled receptors (GPCR’s) to detect chemoattractants. Until recently, it was thought that these receptors activated the same signalling pathway, namely the PI3-Kinase pathway, thus making it difficult to conceive how a neutrophil could differentiate between two groups of chemoattractants. We discovered that end-target chemoattractant receptors had the ability to selectively activate one signalling pathway which intermediary chemoattractants could not. Specifically, we found that end-target chemoattractants could activate p38 MAPK, and that by inh
