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. 2026 Oct 20;17:1972426. doi: 10.3389/fimmu.2026.1972426

Figure 1.

Infographic outlining developmental regulation of NET competence, showing a timeline from birth through the neonatal period. The top section illustrates a strong nNIF-related inhibitory environment at birth, inhibiting NET release, which weakens over time as NET inducibility increases, resulting in a more mature NET response. The lower section highlights NEC-relevant exposures—enteral feeding, microbial colonization or dysbiosis, hypoxia-ischemia, and inflammatory stimuli—increasing during the early postnatal period. A warning box states that NETs may become pathogenic if maturation overlaps with barrier injury, dysbiosis, hypoxia-ischemia, platelet activation, or impaired clearance.

Conceptual model of developmental NET regulation and NEC-relevant exposures. After birth, nNIF-related inhibition gradually weakens as neutrophil NET competence matures, while enteral feeding, microbial colonization, hypoxia-ischemia, and inflammatory stimuli increase. The proposed postnatal day 3–14 interval is based primarily on limited neonatal in vitro and observational evidence and should be regarded as a hypothesis-guided developmental window rather than a validated quantitative threshold for NEC susceptibility.