Fig. 1.

Stroke patients show increased numbers of neutrophils with an accumulation of Low Density Granulocytes. A Representative scatter plot of isolated neutrophils from a patient with an ischemic occlusion showing a mean purity of 98.9% with B equal frequencies of CD66b⁺ neutrophils in stroke patients (n = 35) compared to control patients (n = 16; Healthy). Total numbers of isolated granulocytes are significantly increased in patients with stroke when compared to their controls. C Representative scatter dot plots of flow cytometric assessed surface expression of CD14, CD16 and CD66b on PBMCs showing D significantly increased low density granulocytes (LDGs), defined as CD14⁻ CD16⁺ CD66b⁺ lymphocytes, in stroke patients, despite comparable frequencies of CD66b expression in both groups. Data are representative of independent experiments with 35 stroke patients and 16 control patients (Healthy) and presented as mean ± SD. Mann-Whitney-U Test, *p ≤ 0.05, **p ≤ 0.01, ***p ≤ 0.001. Abbreviations: LDG, low density granulocytes; PBMCs, peripheral blood mononuclear cells