Identification of a nerve-associated, lung-resident interstitial macrophage subset with distinct localization and immunoregulatory properties
Basak B. Ural, Stephen T. Yeung, Payal Damani‐Yokota, Joseph C. Devlin, Maren de Vries, Paola Vera‐Licona, Tasleem Samji, Catherine M. Sawai, Geunhyo Jang, Oriana A. Perez, Quynh Pham, Leigh Maher, P’ng Loke, Meike Dittmann, Boris Reizis, Kamal M. Khanna
Abstract
monocytes for development or maintenance. Unlike AMs, the development of NAMs requires CSF1 but not GM-CSF. Bulk population and single-cell transcriptome analysis indicated that NAMs are distinct from other lung-resident macrophage subsets and highly express immunoregulatory genes under steady-state and inflammatory conditions. NAMs proliferated robustly after influenza infection and activation with the TLR3 ligand poly(I:C), and in their absence, the inflammatory response was augmented, resulting in excessive production of inflammatory cytokines and innate immune cell infiltration. Overall, our study provides insights into a distinct subset of airway-associated pulmonary macrophages that function to maintain immune and tissue homeostasis.