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Vimentin is highly expressed in metastatic cancers, and its expression correlates with poor patient prognoses. However, no causal in vivo studies linking vimentin and non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) progression existed until now. We use three complementary in vivo models to show that vimentin is required for the progression of NSCLC. First, we crossed LSL-KrasG12D; Tp53fl/fl mice (KPV+/+) with vimentin knockout mice (KPV-/-) to demonstrate that KPV-/- mice have attenuated tumor growth and improved survival compared with KPV+/+ mice. Next, we therapeutically treated KPV+/+ mice with withaferin A (WFA), an agent that disrupts vimentin intermediate filaments (IFs). We show that WFA suppresses tumor growth and reduces tumor burden in the lung. Finally, luciferase-expressing KPV+/+, KPV-/-, or KPVY117L cells were implanted into the flanks of athymic mice to track cancer metastasis to the lung. In KPVY117L cells, vimentin forms oligomers called unit-length filaments but cannot assemble into mature vimentin IFs. KPV-/- and KPVY117L cells fail to metastasize, suggesting that cell-autonomous metastasis requires mature vimentin IFs. Integrative metabolomic and transcriptomic analysis reveals that KPV-/- cells upregulate genes associated with ferroptosis, an iron-dependent form of regulated cell death. KPV-/- cells have reduced glutathione peroxidase 4 (GPX4) levels, resulting in the accumulation of toxic lipid peroxides and increased ferroptosis. Together, our results demonstrate that vimentin is required for rapid tumor growth, metastasis, and protection from ferroptosis in NSCLC.
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Carcinoma Pulmonar de Células não Pequenas , Neoplasias Pulmonares , Camundongos , Animais , Carcinoma Pulmonar de Células não Pequenas/genética , Carcinoma Pulmonar de Células não Pequenas/metabolismo , Neoplasias Pulmonares/genética , Neoplasias Pulmonares/metabolismo , Filamentos Intermediários/metabolismo , Vimentina/genética , Vimentina/metabolismo , Modelos Animais de Doenças , Camundongos KnockoutRESUMO
Background: Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) can cause life-threatening respiratory failure in infants. We sought to characterize the local host response to RSV infection in the nasal mucosa of infants with critical bronchiolitis and to identify early admission gene signatures associated with clinical outcomes. Methods: Nasal scrape biopsies were obtained from 33 infants admitted to the pediatric intensive care unit (PICU) with critical RSV bronchiolitis requiring non-invasive respiratory support (NIS) or invasive mechanical ventilation (IMV), and RNA sequencing (RNA-seq) was performed. Gene expression in participants who required shortened NIS (= 3 days), prolonged NIS (> 3 days), and IMV was compared. Findings: Increased expression of ciliated cell genes and estimated ciliated cell abundance, but not immune cell abundance, positively correlated with duration of hospitalization in infants with critical bronchiolitis. A ciliated cell signature characterized infants who required NIS for > 3 days while a basal cell signature was present in infants who required NIS for = 3 days, despite both groups requiring an equal degree of respiratory support at the time of sampling. Infants who required invasive mechanical ventilation had increased expression of genes involved in neutrophil activation and cell death. Interpretation: Increased expression of cilia-related genes in clinically indistinguishable infants with critical RSV may differentiate between infants who will require prolonged hospitalization and infants who will recover quickly. Validation of these findings in a larger cohort is needed to determine whether a cilia-related gene signature can predict duration of illness in infants with critical bronchiolitis. The ability to identify which infants with critical RSV bronchiolitis may require prolonged hospitalization using non-invasive nasal samples would provide invaluable prognostic information to parents and medical providers.
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Bronquiolite , Infecções por Vírus Respiratório Sincicial , Vírus Sincicial Respiratório Humano , Bronquiolite/genética , Criança , Cílios , Humanos , Lactente , Mucosa Nasal , Infecções por Vírus Respiratório Sincicial/genética , Vírus Sincicial Respiratório Humano/genética , Índice de Gravidade de DoençaRESUMO
Aging is among the most important risk factors for morbidity and mortality. To contribute toward a molecular understanding of aging, we analyzed age-resolved transcriptomic data from multiple studies. Here, we show that transcript length alone explains most transcriptional changes observed with aging in mice and humans. We present three lines of evidence supporting the biological importance of the uncovered transcriptome imbalance. First, in vertebrates the length association primarily displays a lower relative abundance of long transcripts in aging. Second, eight antiaging interventions of the Interventions Testing Program of the National Institute on Aging can counter this length association. Third, we find that in humans and mice the genes with the longest transcripts enrich for genes reported to extend lifespan, whereas those with the shortest transcripts enrich for genes reported to shorten lifespan. Our study opens fundamental questions on aging and the organization of transcriptomes.
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Envelhecimento , Transcriptoma , Humanos , Animais , Camundongos , Transcriptoma/genética , Envelhecimento/genética , Longevidade/genética , Perfilação da Expressão Gênica , Fatores de RiscoRESUMO
Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) has infected more than 180 million people since the onset of the pandemic. Despite similar viral load and infectivity rates between children and adults, children rarely develop severe illness. Differences in the host response to the virus at the primary infection site are among the mechanisms proposed to account for this disparity. Our objective was to investigate the host response to SARS-CoV-2 in the nasal mucosa in children and adults and compare it with the host response to respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) and influenza virus. We analyzed clinical outcomes and gene expression in the nasal mucosa of 36 children with SARS-CoV-2, 24 children with RSV, 9 children with influenza virus, 16 adults with SARS-CoV-2, and 7 healthy pediatric and 13 healthy adult controls. In both children and adults, infection with SARS-CoV-2 led to an IFN response in the nasal mucosa. The magnitude of the IFN response correlated with the abundance of viral reads, not the severity of illness, and was comparable between children and adults infected with SARS-CoV-2 and children with severe RSV infection. Expression of ACE2 and TMPRSS2 did not correlate with age or presence of viral infection. SARS-CoV-2-infected adults had increased expression of genes involved in neutrophil activation and T-cell receptor signaling pathways compared with SARS-CoV-2-infected children, despite similar severity of illness and viral reads. Age-related differences in the immune response to SARS-CoV-2 may place adults at increased risk of developing severe illness.
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Envelhecimento/imunologia , COVID-19/imunologia , Regulação da Expressão Gênica/imunologia , Imunidade nas Mucosas , Mucosa Nasal/imunologia , SARS-CoV-2/imunologia , Adolescente , Fatores Etários , Enzima de Conversão de Angiotensina 2/imunologia , Criança , Pré-Escolar , Feminino , Humanos , Lactente , Masculino , Mucosa Nasal/virologia , Infecções por Vírus Respiratório Sincicial/imunologia , Vírus Sinciciais Respiratórios/imunologia , Serina Endopeptidases/imunologiaRESUMO
Sepsis and acute lung injury (ALI) are linked to mitochondrial dysfunction; however, the underlying mechanism remains elusive. We previously reported that c-Jun N-terminal protein kinase 2 (JNK2) promotes stress-induced mitophagy by targeting small mitochondrial alternative reading frame (smARF) for ubiquitin-mediated proteasomal degradation, thereby preventing mitochondrial dysfunction and restraining inflammasome activation. Here we report that loss of JNK2 exacerbates lung inflammation and injury during sepsis and ALI in mice. JNK2 is downregulated in mice with endotoxic shock or ALI, concomitantly correlated inversely with disease severity. Small RNA sequencing revealed that miR-221-5p, which contains seed sequence matching to JNK2 mRNA 3' untranslated region (3'UTR), is upregulated in response to lipopolysaccharide, with dynamically inverse correlation with JNK2 mRNA levels. miR-221-5p targets the 3'UTR of JNK2 mRNA leading to its downregulation. Accordingly, miR-221-5p exacerbates lung inflammation and injury during sepsis in mice by targeting JNK2. Importantly, in patients with pneumonia in medical intensive care unit, JNK2 mRNA levels in alveolar macrophages flow sorted from non-bronchoscopic broncholaveolar lavage (BAL) fluid were inversely correlated strongly and significantly with the percentage of neutrophils, neutrophil and white blood cell counts in BAL fluid. Our data suggest that miR-221-5p targets JNK2 and thereby aggravates lung inflammation and injury during sepsis.
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Lesão Pulmonar Aguda/patologia , Macrófagos Alveolares/metabolismo , MicroRNAs/metabolismo , Proteína Quinase 9 Ativada por Mitógeno/metabolismo , Lesão Pulmonar Aguda/etiologia , Lesão Pulmonar Aguda/metabolismo , Animais , Regulação para Baixo , Regulação da Expressão Gênica , Humanos , Camundongos , Camundongos Endogâmicos C57BL , Camundongos Knockout , Síndrome do Desconforto Respiratório/etiologia , Síndrome do Desconforto Respiratório/metabolismo , Síndrome do Desconforto Respiratório/patologia , Sepse/complicaçõesRESUMO
Alveolar macrophages orchestrate the response to viral infections. Age-related changes in these cells may underlie the differential severity of pneumonia in older patients. We performed an integrated analysis of single-cell RNA-Seq data that revealed homogenous age-related changes in the alveolar macrophage transcriptome in humans and mice. Using genetic lineage tracing with sequential injury, heterochronic adoptive transfer, and parabiosis, we found that the lung microenvironment drove an age-related resistance of alveolar macrophages to proliferation that persisted during influenza A viral infection. Ligand-receptor pair analysis localized these changes to the extracellular matrix, where hyaluronan was increased in aged animals and altered the proliferative response of bone marrow-derived macrophages to granulocyte macrophage colony-stimulating factor (GM-CSF). Our findings suggest that strategies targeting the aging lung microenvironment will be necessary to restore alveolar macrophage function in aging.
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Envelhecimento/imunologia , Microambiente Celular/imunologia , Pulmão/imunologia , Macrófagos Alveolares/imunologia , Envelhecimento/patologia , Animais , Humanos , Pulmão/patologia , Macrófagos Alveolares/patologia , Camundongos , Camundongos Transgênicos , RNA-SeqRESUMO
RATIONALE: Despite similar viral load and infectivity rates between children and adults infected with SARS-CoV-2, children rarely develop severe illness. Differences in the host response to the virus at the primary infection site are among the proposed mechanisms. OBJECTIVES: To investigate the host response to SARS-CoV-2, respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), and influenza virus (IV) in the nasal mucosa in children and adults. METHODS: Clinical outcomes and gene expression in the nasal mucosa were analyzed in 36 children hospitalized with SARS-CoV-2 infection, 24 children with RSV infection, 9 children with IV infection, 16 adults with mild to moderate SARS-CoV-2 infection, and 7 healthy pediatric and 13 healthy adult controls. RESULTS: In both children and adults, infection with SARS-CoV-2 leads to an interferon response in the nasal mucosa. The magnitude of the interferon response correlated with the abundance of viral reads and was comparable between symptomatic children and adults infected with SARS-CoV-2 and symptomatic children infected with RSV and IV. Cell type deconvolution identified an increased abundance of immune cells in the samples from children and adults with a viral infection. Expression of ACE2 and TMPRSS2 - key entry factors for SARS-CoV-2 - did not correlate with age or presence or absence of viral infection. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings support the hypothesis that differences in the immune response to SARS-CoV-2 determine disease severity, independent of viral load and interferon response at the primary infection primary site.
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Tregs require Foxp3 expression and induction of a specific DNA hypomethylation signature during development, after which Tregs persist as a self-renewing population that regulates immune system activation. Whether maintenance DNA methylation is required for Treg lineage development and stability and how methylation patterns are maintained during lineage self-renewal remain unclear. Here, we demonstrate that the epigenetic regulator ubiquitin-like with plant homeodomain and RING finger domains 1 (Uhrf1) is essential for maintenance of methyl-DNA marks that stabilize Treg cellular identity by repressing effector T cell transcriptional programs. Constitutive and induced deficiency of Uhrf1 within Foxp3+ cells resulted in global yet nonuniform loss of DNA methylation, derepression of inflammatory transcriptional programs, destabilization of the Treg lineage, and spontaneous inflammation. These findings support a paradigm in which maintenance DNA methylation is required in distinct regions of the Treg genome for both lineage establishment and stability of identity and suppressive function.
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Proteínas Estimuladoras de Ligação a CCAAT/imunologia , Metilação de DNA/imunologia , Fatores de Transcrição Forkhead/imunologia , Linfócitos T Reguladores/imunologia , Ubiquitina-Proteína Ligases/imunologia , Animais , Proteínas Estimuladoras de Ligação a CCAAT/genética , Fatores de Transcrição Forkhead/genética , Camundongos , Camundongos Transgênicos , Ubiquitina-Proteína Ligases/genéticaRESUMO
Cigarette smoking, the leading cause of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), has been implicated as a risk factor for severe disease in patients infected with the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). Here we show that mice with lung epithelial cell-specific loss of function of Miz1, which we identified as a negative regulator of nuclear factor κB (NF-κB) signaling, spontaneously develop progressive age-related changes resembling COPD. Furthermore, loss of Miz1 up-regulates the expression of Ace2, the receptor for SARS-CoV-2. Concomitant partial loss of NF-κB/RelA prevented the development of COPD-like phenotype in Miz1-deficient mice. Miz1 protein levels are reduced in the lungs from patients with COPD, and in the lungs of mice exposed to chronic cigarette smoke. Our data suggest that Miz1 down-regulation-induced sustained activation of NF-κB-dependent inflammation in the lung epithelium is sufficient to induce progressive lung and airway destruction that recapitulates features of COPD, with implications for COVID-19.
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Células Epiteliais/metabolismo , Fatores de Transcrição Kruppel-Like/metabolismo , Pulmão/metabolismo , Peptidil Dipeptidase A/metabolismo , Fenótipo , Proteínas Inibidoras de STAT Ativados/genética , Doença Pulmonar Obstrutiva Crônica/genética , Ubiquitina-Proteína Ligases/genética , Regulação para Cima/genética , Enzima de Conversão de Angiotensina 2 , Animais , Betacoronavirus , COVID-19 , Infecções por Coronavirus/metabolismo , Infecções por Coronavirus/virologia , Técnicas de Inativação de Genes , Humanos , Camundongos , Camundongos Endogâmicos C57BL , Camundongos Knockout , Pandemias , Pneumonia Viral/metabolismo , Pneumonia Viral/virologia , Proteínas Inibidoras de STAT Ativados/metabolismo , Doença Pulmonar Obstrutiva Crônica/etiologia , Doença Pulmonar Obstrutiva Crônica/metabolismo , SARS-CoV-2 , Transdução de Sinais/genética , Fumar/efeitos adversos , Fator de Transcrição RelA/metabolismo , Ubiquitina-Proteína Ligases/metabolismoRESUMO
Rationale: The contributions of diverse cell populations in the human lung to pulmonary fibrosis pathogenesis are poorly understood. Single-cell RNA sequencing can reveal changes within individual cell populations during pulmonary fibrosis that are important for disease pathogenesis. Objectives: To determine whether single-cell RNA sequencing can reveal disease-related heterogeneity within alveolar macrophages, epithelial cells, or other cell types in lung tissue from subjects with pulmonary fibrosis compared with control subjects. Methods: We performed single-cell RNA sequencing on lung tissue obtained from eight transplant donors and eight recipients with pulmonary fibrosis and on one bronchoscopic cryobiospy sample from a patient with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis. We validated these data using in situ RNA hybridization, immunohistochemistry, and bulk RNA-sequencing on flow-sorted cells from 22 additional subjects. Measurements and Main Results: We identified a distinct, novel population of profibrotic alveolar macrophages exclusively in patients with fibrosis. Within epithelial cells, the expression of genes involved in Wnt secretion and response was restricted to nonoverlapping cells. We identified rare cell populations including airway stem cells and senescent cells emerging during pulmonary fibrosis. We developed a web-based tool to explore these data. Conclusions: We generated a single-cell atlas of pulmonary fibrosis. Using this atlas, we demonstrated heterogeneity within alveolar macrophages and epithelial cells from subjects with pulmonary fibrosis. These results support the feasibility of discovery-based approaches using next-generation sequencing technologies to identify signaling pathways for targeting in the development of personalized therapies for patients with pulmonary fibrosis.
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Células Cultivadas/patologia , Células Epiteliais/patologia , Fibrose Pulmonar Idiopática/genética , Fibrose Pulmonar Idiopática/patologia , Análise de Sequência de RNA , Células-Tronco/patologia , Transcriptoma , Animais , Modelos Animais de Doenças , Feminino , Humanos , MasculinoRESUMO
Rationale: The identification of informative elements of the host response to infection may improve the diagnosis and management of bacterial pneumonia. Objectives: To determine whether the absence of alveolar neutrophilia can exclude bacterial pneumonia in critically ill patients with suspected infection and to test whether signatures of bacterial pneumonia can be identified in the alveolar macrophage transcriptome. Methods: We determined the test characteristics of alveolar neutrophilia for the diagnosis of bacterial pneumonia in three cohorts of mechanically ventilated patients. In one cohort, we also isolated macrophages from alveolar lavage fluid and used the transcriptome to identify signatures of bacterial pneumonia. Finally, we developed a humanized mouse model of Pseudomonas aeruginosa pneumonia to determine if pathogen-specific signatures can be identified in human alveolar macrophages. Measurements and Main Results: An alveolar neutrophil percentage less than 50% had a negative predictive value of greater than 90% for bacterial pneumonia in both the retrospective (n = 851) and validation cohorts (n = 76 and n = 79). A transcriptional signature of bacterial pneumonia was present in both resident and recruited macrophages. Gene signatures from both cell types identified patients with bacterial pneumonia with test characteristics similar to alveolar neutrophilia. Conclusions: The absence of alveolar neutrophilia has a high negative predictive value for bacterial pneumonia in critically ill patients with suspected infection. Macrophages can be isolated from alveolar lavage fluid obtained during routine care and used for RNA-Seq analysis. This novel approach may facilitate a longitudinal and multidimensional assessment of the host response to bacterial pneumonia.
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Antibacterianos/uso terapêutico , Interações Hospedeiro-Patógeno/efeitos dos fármacos , Macrófagos Alveolares/efeitos dos fármacos , Pneumonia Bacteriana/tratamento farmacológico , Infecções por Pseudomonas/tratamento farmacológico , Pseudomonas aeruginosa/efeitos dos fármacos , Respiração Artificial , Idoso , Animais , Estudos de Coortes , Modelos Animais de Doenças , Feminino , Humanos , Masculino , Camundongos , Pessoa de Meia-Idade , Estudos RetrospectivosRESUMO
Pediatric acute lung injury, usually because of pneumonia, has a mortality rate of more than 20% and an incidence that rivals that of all childhood cancers combined. CD4+ T-cells coordinate the immune response to pneumonia but fail to function robustly among the very young, who have poor outcomes from lung infection. We hypothesized that DNA methylation represses a mature CD4+ T-cell transcriptional program in neonates with pneumonia. Here, we found that neonatal mice (3-4 days old) aspirated with Escherichia coli bacteria had a higher mortality rate than juvenile mice (11-14 days old). Transcriptional profiling with an unsupervised RNA-Seq approach revealed that neonates displayed an attenuated lung CD4+ T-cell transcriptional response to pneumonia compared with juveniles. Unlike neonates, juveniles up-regulated a robust set of canonical T-cell immune response genes. DNA methylation profiling with modified reduced representation bisulfite sequencing revealed 44,119 differentially methylated CpGs, which preferentially clustered around transcriptional start sites and CpG islands. A methylation difference-filtering algorithm detected genes with a high likelihood of differential promoter methylation regulating their expression; these 731 loci encoded important immune response and tissue-protective T-cell pathway components. Disruption of DNA methylation with the hypomethylating agent decitabine induced plasticity in the lung CD4+ T-cell marker phenotype. Altogether, multidimensional profiling suggested that DNA methylation within the promoters of a core set of CD4+ T-cell pathway genes contributes to the hyporesponsive neonatal immune response to pneumonia. These findings also suggest that DNA methylation could serve as a mechanistic target for disease-modifying therapies in pediatric lung infection and injury.
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Linfócitos T CD4-Positivos/imunologia , Metilação de DNA , Infecções por Escherichia coli/imunologia , Escherichia coli/imunologia , Pneumonia/imunologia , Animais , Animais Recém-Nascidos , Linfócitos T CD4-Positivos/metabolismo , Ilhas de CpG , Epigênese Genética , Infecções por Escherichia coli/genética , Camundongos , Camundongos Endogâmicos C57BL , Pneumonia/genética , Ativação TranscricionalRESUMO
Organisms have evolved adaptive mechanisms in response to stress for cellular survival. During acute hypoxic stress, cells down-regulate energy-consuming enzymes such as Na,K-ATPase. Within minutes of alveolar epithelial cell (AEC) exposure to hypoxia, protein kinase C zeta (PKCζ) phosphorylates the α1-Na,K-ATPase subunit and triggers it for endocytosis, independently of the hypoxia-inducible factor (HIF). However, the Na,K-ATPase activity is essential for cell homeostasis. HIF induces the heme-oxidized IRP2 ubiquitin ligase 1L (HOIL-1L), which leads to PKCζ degradation. Here we report a mechanism of prosurvival adaptation of AECs to prolonged hypoxia where PKCζ degradation allows plasma membrane Na,K-ATPase stabilization at â¼50% of normoxic levels, preventing its excessive down-regulation and cell death. Mice lacking HOIL-1L in lung epithelial cells (CreSPC/HOIL-1Lfl/fl ) were sensitized to hypoxia because they express higher levels of PKCζ and, consequently, lower plasma membrane Na,K-ATPase levels, which increased cell death and worsened lung injury. In AECs, expression of an α1-Na,K-ATPase construct bearing an S18A (α1-S18A) mutation, which precludes PKCζ phosphorylation, stabilized the Na,K-ATPase at the plasma membrane and prevented hypoxia-induced cell death even in the absence of HOIL-1L. Adenoviral overexpression of the α1-S18A mutant Na,K-ATPase in vivo rescued the enhanced sensitivity of CreSPC/HOIL-1Lfl/fl mice to hypoxic lung injury. These data suggest that stabilization of Na,K-ATPase during severe hypoxia is a HIF-dependent process involving PKCζ degradation. Accordingly, we provide evidence of an important adaptive mechanism to severe hypoxia, whereby halting the exaggerated down-regulation of plasma membrane Na,K-ATPase prevents cell death and lung injury.
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Proteínas de Transporte/metabolismo , Subunidade alfa do Fator 1 Induzível por Hipóxia/metabolismo , Hipóxia/patologia , Lesão Pulmonar/patologia , Proteína Quinase C/metabolismo , ATPase Trocadora de Sódio-Potássio/metabolismo , Células A549 , Animais , Apoptose , Células COS , Proteínas de Transporte/genética , Hipóxia Celular , Membrana Celular/metabolismo , Chlorocebus aethiops , Regulação para Baixo , Endocitose , Células Epiteliais/patologia , Humanos , Hipóxia/complicações , Subunidade alfa do Fator 1 Induzível por Hipóxia/genética , Lesão Pulmonar/etiologia , Masculino , Camundongos , Camundongos Endogâmicos C57BL , Camundongos Endogâmicos ICR , Camundongos Knockout , Mutação , Fosforilação , Cultura Primária de Células , Proteólise , Alvéolos Pulmonares/citologia , Alvéolos Pulmonares/patologia , Interferência de RNA , RNA Interferente Pequeno/metabolismo , Ratos , Ratos Sprague-Dawley , ATPase Trocadora de Sódio-Potássio/genéticaRESUMO
Biomedical text mining promises to assist biologists in quickly navigating the combined knowledge in their domain. This would allow improved understanding of the complex interactions within biological systems and faster hypothesis generation. New biomedical research articles are published daily and text mining tools are only as good as the corpus from which they work. Many text mining tools are underused because their results are static and do not reflect the constantly expanding knowledge in the field. In order for biomedical text mining to become an indispensable tool used by researchers, this problem must be addressed. To this end, we present PubRunner, a framework for regularly running text mining tools on the latest publications. PubRunner is lightweight, simple to use, and can be integrated with an existing text mining tool. The workflow involves downloading the latest abstracts from PubMed, executing a user-defined tool, pushing the resulting data to a public FTP, and publicizing the location of these results on the public PubRunner website. This shows a proof of concept that we hope will encourage text mining developers to build tools that truly will aid biologists in exploring the latest publications.
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Little is known about the relative importance of monocyte and tissue-resident macrophages in the development of lung fibrosis. We show that specific genetic deletion of monocyte-derived alveolar macrophages after their recruitment to the lung ameliorated lung fibrosis, whereas tissue-resident alveolar macrophages did not contribute to fibrosis. Using transcriptomic profiling of flow-sorted cells, we found that monocyte to alveolar macrophage differentiation unfolds continuously over the course of fibrosis and its resolution. During the fibrotic phase, monocyte-derived alveolar macrophages differ significantly from tissue-resident alveolar macrophages in their expression of profibrotic genes. A population of monocyte-derived alveolar macrophages persisted in the lung for one year after the resolution of fibrosis, where they became increasingly similar to tissue-resident alveolar macrophages. Human homologues of profibrotic genes expressed by mouse monocyte-derived alveolar macrophages during fibrosis were up-regulated in human alveolar macrophages from fibrotic compared with normal lungs. Our findings suggest that selectively targeting alveolar macrophage differentiation within the lung may ameliorate fibrosis without the adverse consequences associated with global monocyte or tissue-resident alveolar macrophage depletion.
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Pulmão/patologia , Macrófagos Alveolares/patologia , Animais , Diferenciação Celular , Fibrose , Humanos , Pulmão/citologia , Camundongos , Monócitos/patologiaRESUMO
Primary graft dysfunction is the predominant driver of mortality and graft loss after lung transplantation. Recruitment of neutrophils as a result of ischemia-reperfusion injury is thought to cause primary graft dysfunction; however, the mechanisms that regulate neutrophil influx into the injured lung are incompletely understood. We found that donor-derived intravascular nonclassical monocytes (NCMs) are retained in human and murine donor lungs used in transplantation and can be visualized at sites of endothelial injury after reperfusion. When NCMs in the donor lungs were depleted, either pharmacologically or genetically, neutrophil influx and lung graft injury were attenuated in both allogeneic and syngeneic models. Similar protection was observed when the patrolling function of donor NCMs was impaired by deletion of the fractalkine receptor CX3CR1. Unbiased transcriptomic profiling revealed up-regulation of MyD88 pathway genes and a key neutrophil chemoattractant, CXCL2, in donor-derived NCMs after reperfusion. Reconstitution of NCM-depleted donor lungs with wild-type but not MyD88-deficient NCMs rescued neutrophil migration. Donor NCMs, through MyD88 signaling, were responsible for CXCL2 production in the allograft and neutralization of CXCL2 attenuated neutrophil influx. These findings suggest that therapies to deplete or inhibit NCMs in donor lung might ameliorate primary graft dysfunction with minimal toxicity to the recipient.