Extracellular traps: how to isolate and quantify extracellular DNA (ET-DNA)

When pathogens pass the physical barriers, neutrophils are the first cells that infiltrate the infected tissue. Subsequently they use several well-known strategies to destroy an invading microorganism such as phagocytosis and degranulation. Recently it was shown that neutrophils are capable of releasing their nuclear DNA in the form of an extracellular trap, know as a neutrophil extracellular traps (NETs). On the one hand, extracellular traps plays crucial role during antimicrobial defense, on the other they can cause autoimmune disorders. Therefore, rigorous quantification of ETs-DNA seems to be important both for basic research and clinical applications. This paper assesses quantification methods which were used to estimate extracellular traps formation.