Alveolar macrophages articles from across Nature Portfolio

Asthma may be exacerbated by respiratory viral infection, but the cellular and molecular mechanisms are still unclear. Here the authors show, using mouse models of asthma with influenza infection, that asthma-induced cullin5 in alveolar macrophages suppresses IFN-β production to promote neutrophilic inflammation but dampens antiviral immunity.

Influenza virus infection causes injury to the lung. Here, Pervizaj-Oruqaj et al. show that Plet1 expressed by lung macrophages promotes epithelial repair by boosting epithelial cell proliferation and barrier function.

Acute hypoxemic respiratory failure (AHRF) and the associated lung immune cell features are not well understood. Here the authors use CITE-Seq to analyse the transcriptomic and phenotypic profile of lung and blood cells from a longitudinal cohort of patients with AHRF to identify gene signatures and cell surface proteins associated with disease severity.

The function of METTL3 and RNA methylation is important in various biological processes. Here the authors show that METTL3 is reduced in childhood asthma patients and that conditional knockout of Mettl3 in mouse myeloid cells enhances Th2 response and allergic asthma associated with changes in macrophage function.

Determining the immune crosstalk between macrophages and NK cells in bronchioalveolar lavage fluid during SARS-CoV-2 infection in macaques identifies immunoregulatory properties of NK cells and their implications for viral persistence.

Alveolar macrophages (AMs), the resident macrophages of the lung, can be expanded ex vivo to generate large numbers of cells but show culture adaptations related to epigenetic and transcriptional changes. After transplantation into the lungs of mice, however, culture-expanded AMs lose these adaptations, fully restore in vivo identity and functionally reconstitute the AM pool.

Tissue-resident alveolar macrophages promote early tumor invasiveness and induction of immunosuppressive regulatory T cells in non-small cell lung carcinoma.