Mechanism of Diapedesis: Importance of the Transcellular Route

The neutrophil transmigration across the blood endothelial cell barrier represents the prerequisite step of innate inflammation. Neutrophil recruitment to inflamed tissues occurs in a well-defined stepwise manner, which includes elements of neutrophil rolling, firm adhesion, and crawling onto the endothelial cell surface before transmigrating across the endothelial barrier. This latter step known as diapedesis can occur at the endothelial cell junction (paracellular) or directly through the endothelial cell body (transcellular). The extravasation cascade is controlled by series of engagement of various adhesive modules, which result in activation of bidirectional signals to neutrophils and endothelial cells for adequate cellular response. This review will focus on recent advances in our understanding of mechanism of leukocyte crawling and diapedesis, with an emphasis on leukocyte-endothelial interactions and the signaling pathways they transduce to determine the mode of diapedesis, junctional or non-junctional. I will also discuss emerging evidence highlighting key differences in the two modes of diapedesis and why it is clinically important to understand specificity in the regulation of diapedesis.