Role of PTEN in neutrophil extracellular trap formation

•We overexpressed and down regulated PTEN in HL-60 cells.•We differentiated HL-60 cells to neutrophil by DMSO.•We examined changes in the level of PTEN expression.•Increasing PTEN expression will increase NETs formation.•Suppression of PTEN expression will decrease NETs formation.

NETosis has been associated with a particular mode of cell death although it is still controversial as to what extent autophagy is involved in NETosis. Class I/AKT/mTOR pathway is a key regulator of autophagy. PTEN tumor suppressor gene encodes a dual specificity phosphatase that antagonizes the phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase in class the I/AKT/mTOR pathway. In this study, we investigated the effects of PTEN down-regulation as well as overexpression on NETosis. Our results show that 35% of HL-60 differentiated neutrophil-like cells generated NETs by PMA. The portion of the population that produced NETs in PTEN knockdown HL-60 differentiated neutrophils was 9% and in PTEN overexpressed HL-60 differentiated neutrophils, it was 56%. Our results show that increasing PTEN expression increases NETs formation in neutrophils, and its suppression reduces NETs.