Data from: Self-extinguishing relay waves enable homeostatic control of human neutrophil swarming

Neutrophils collectively migrate to sites of injury and infection. How
these swarms are coordinated to ensure the proper level of recruitment is
unknown. Using an ex vivo model of infection, we show that human
neutrophil swarming is organized by multiple pulsatile chemoattractant
waves. These waves propagate through active relay in which stimulated
neutrophils trigger their neighbors to release additional swarming cues.
Unlike canonical active relays, we find these waves to be
self-terminating, limiting the spatial range of cell recruitment. We
identify an NADPH-oxidase-based negative feedback loop that is needed for
this self-terminating behavior. We observe near-constant levels of
neutrophil recruitment over a wide range of starting conditions, revealing
surprising robustness in the swarming process. This homeostatic control is
achieved by larger and more numerous swarming waves at lower cell
densities. We link defective wave termination to a broken recruitment
homeostat in the context of human chronic granulomatous disease.