An Inherited Abnormality of Neutrophil Adhesion

Abstract

Neutrophils from a five-year-old boy with recurrent bacterial infections failed to spread on surfaces, leading to a severe defect in chemotaxis and a mild impairment in phagocytosis. Failure to spread was also seen in a fraction of the neutrophils from the patient's mother and sister, but cells from his father and brother were normal. Gel electrophoresis revealed that a protein with a molecular weight of 110,000 daltons (designated gp 110) present in the particulate fraction of normal neutrophils was absent from the patient's cells, and that its levels were below normal in cells from his mother and sister but normal in neutrophils from his father and brother.