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Macrophages and platelets join forces to release kidney-damaging DNA traps

Nature Medicine volume 24, pages 128–129 (2018)Cite this article

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A recent study in mice dissects the mechanisms through which muscle damage leads to kidney dysfunction and identifies macrophage extracellular trap (MET) formation as a new pathogenic driver and potential therapeutic target.

Neutrophils expel their own DNA and entrap surrounding microbes through neutrophil extracellular trap (NET) formation (NETosis)1. Since its relatively recent discovery, several aspects of this intriguing process have remained enigmatic: are neutrophils the only cells capable of releasing their own DNA? Do NETs mainly act as an antimicrobial, or do they also cause tissue damage and disease? What are the physiological events triggering NET formation in vivo? Recent studies demonstrating that not only neutrophils but also other long-lived mononuclear immune cells, particularly macrophages2,3, are able to form extracellular DNA traps have broadened the view of extracellular trap formation. Knowledge of NETs is still fragmentary, and understanding of the release and effector mechanisms of METs and their role in disease is worse. A recent study by Okubo et al.4 in this issue of Nature Medicine shows for the first time that macrophages, if activated by platelets, can form METs that play a pathogenic role in rhabdomyolysis-induced kidney injury, expanding the cellular repertoire of extracellular trap formation and its relevance in disease pathologies.

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Figure 1: Skeletal muscle necrosis leads to kidney failure via MET formation.

Marina Corral Spence/Springer Nature

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Children's Hospital, University of Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany and Roche Pharma Research & Early Development (pRED), Immunology, Inflammation and Infectious Diseases (I3) Discovery and Translational Area, Roche Innovation Center, Basel, Switzerland

    Dominik Hartl

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  1. Dominik Hartl
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Correspondence to Dominik Hartl.

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D.H. works for a pharmaceutical company (Roche, Research and Early Development).

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Hartl, D. Macrophages and platelets join forces to release kidney-damaging DNA traps. Nat Med 24, 128–129 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1038/nm.4486

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