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. 2021 Sep 22;6(18):e150862. doi: 10.1172/jci.insight.150862

Figure 5. Therapeutic blockade of IL-8 reduces COVID-19–associated neutrophil activation in vitro.

Figure 5

(A) IL-8 production and blocking assay similar to Figure 2E. One-way ANOVA with post hoc Dunnett’s multiple comparisons test comparing IL-8 to the other conditions. n = 5 healthy neutrophil donors. (B) Illustration of in vitro experiment: Neutrophils from healthy donors were exposed to plasma from patients with severe COVID-19 and pretreated with vehicle, anti–IL-8 antibody or the CXCR-1/-2 antagonist reparixin. Degranulation, NETosis and surface expression of activation markers were assessed by microscopy and flow cytometry, respectively. (C) NETing and degranulated neutrophils as percent of healthy neutrophils stimulated with COVID-19 plasma and nothing, anti–IL-8 antibodies or reparixin. Paired 2-sided Student’s t test, n = 7 plasma samples from patients with COVID-19. (D) Representative images of COVID-19 plasma and COVID-19 plasma and anti–IL-8 incubated neutrophils. Stars show degranulation, arrows NETing. Scale bar: 10 μm. *P < 0.05, **P < 0.01, ***P < 0.001.