28 Aug Advanced imaging highlights quick-changing act of innate immune cells
Neutrophils imaged using optical metabolic imaging, with representative images measuring NAD(P)H mean lifetime on the left and optical redox ratio on the right.
Neutrophils are specialized innate immune cells that act as the first responders to any sign of infection or disease. This requires them to exert metabolic energy at a rapid rate.
In new research published in the journal Frontiers in Immunology, researchers at the Morgridge Institute for Research used advanced metabolic imaging to watch neutrophils at the moment they perform their quick-changing act.
“These cells are so much fun, but really hard to work with — you need so much patience,” says Rupsa Datta, an associate scientist in the lab of Morgridge Investigator Melissa Skala and first author of the study.
Despite being abundant in human blood, neutrophils are very short-lived and difficult to grow in culture, making them understudied and poorly understood.
The Skala Lab uses a specialized imaging technique called optical metabolic imaging (OMI) that Datta thought would be a good fit to help study this sensitive cell type.
“I wanted to observe how neutrophil metabolism changes with activation and see if our optical technique was sensitive to those changes,” Datta says. “You have to work fast and do everything the same day, maximum six hours after isolation. I wouldn’t do metabolic imaging after that.”