Single-cell transcriptomics applied to cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) for elucidating the pathophysiology of neurologic diseases has produced only a preliminary characterization of CSF immune cells. CSF derives from and borders central nervous system (CNS) tissue, allowing for comprehensive accounting of cell types along with their relative abundance and immunologic profiles relevant to CNS diseases. Using integration techniques applied to publicly available datasets in combination with our own studies, we generated a compendium with 139 subjects encompassing 135 CSF and 58 blood samples.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMacrophages are innate immune cells present in all tissues, in which they participate in immune responses and maintenance of tissue homeostasis. They develop either from embryonic precursors or from circulating monocytes, and their functions are in part dictated by their origin. We previously observed robust monocyte recruitment and contribution to the macrophage pool in brown adipose tissue.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFDespite the presence of strategically positioned anatomical barriers designed to protect the central nervous system (CNS), it is not entirely isolated from the immune system. In fact, it remains physically connected to, and can be influenced by, the peripheral immune system. How the CNS retains such responsiveness while maintaining an immunologically unique status remains an outstanding question.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAge-related inflammation or inflammaging is a key mechanism that increases disease burden and may control lifespan. How adipose tissue macrophages (ATMs) control inflammaging is not well understood in part because the molecular identities of niche-specific ATMs are incompletely known. Using intravascular labeling to exclude circulating myeloid cells and subsequent single-cell sequencing with orthogonal validation, we define the diversity and alterations in niche resident ATMs through lifespan.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThymic involution is a key factor in human immune aging, leading to reduced thymic output and a decline in recent thymic emigrant (RTE) naive T cells in circulation. Currently, the precise definition of human RTEs and their corresponding cell surface markers lacks clarity. Analysis of single-cell RNA-seq/ATAC-seq data distinguished RTEs by the expression of SOX4, IKZF2, and TOX and CD38 protein, whereby surface CD38 expression universally identified CD8 and CD4 RTEs.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFNeutrophils are highly abundant in the gingival tissues where they play an essential role in immune homeostasis by preventing microbial invasion. Here, we show that the oral periodontal pathogen Porphyromonas gingivalis utilizes its cysteine proteases (gingipains) to disengage phagosomal antimicrobial capacity. Arginine gingipains are a sub-family of trypsin-like proteases produced by P.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFTumor angiogenesis and immunity show an inverse correlation in cancer progression and outcome. Here, we report that ZBTB46, a repressive transcription factor and a widely accepted marker for classical dendritic cells (DCs), controls both tumor angiogenesis and immunity. Zbtb46 was downregulated in both DCs and endothelial cells by tumor-derived factors to facilitate robust tumor growth.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCD4 T cells can either enhance or inhibit tumour immunity. Although regulatory T cells have long been known to impede antitumour responses, other CD4 T cells have recently been implicated in inhibiting this response. Yet, the nature and function of the latter remain unclear.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCancer neoantigens have been shown to elicit cancer-specific T-cell responses and have garnered much attention for their roles in both spontaneous and therapeutically induced antitumor responses. Mass spectrometry (MS) profiling of tumor immunopeptidomes has been used, in part, to identify MHC-bound mutant neoantigen ligands. However, under standard conditions, MS-based detection of such rare but clinically relevant neoantigens is relatively insensitive, requiring 300 million cells or more.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFTranscriptomic profiling became a standard approach to quantify a cell state, which led to the accumulation of huge amount of public gene expression datasets. However, both reuse of these datasets or analysis of newly generated ones requires significant technical expertise. Here, we present Phantasus: a user-friendly web application for interactive gene expression analysis which provides a streamlined access to more than 96,000 public gene expression datasets, as well as allows analysis of user-uploaded datasets.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Parasitic nematodes, significant pathogens for humans, animals, and plants, depend on diverse organ systems for intra-host survival. Understanding the cellular diversity and molecular variations underlying these functions holds promise for developing novel therapeutics, with specific emphasis on the neuromuscular system's functional diversity. The nematode intestine, crucial for anthelmintic therapies, exhibits diverse cellular phenotypes, and unraveling this diversity at the single-cell level is essential for advancing knowledge in anthelmintic research across various organ systems.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFDuring development, inflammation or tissue injury, macrophages may successively engulf and process multiple apoptotic corpses via efferocytosis to achieve tissue homeostasis. How macrophages may rapidly adapt their transcription to achieve continuous corpse uptake is incompletely understood. Transcriptional pause/release is an evolutionarily conserved mechanism, in which RNA polymerase (Pol) II initiates transcription for 20-60 nucleotides, is paused for minutes to hours and is then released to make full-length mRNA.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAlthough autophagy sequesters Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) in in vitro cultured macrophages, loss of autophagy in macrophages in vivo does not result in susceptibility to a standard low-dose Mtb infection until late during infection, leaving open questions regarding the protective role of autophagy during Mtb infection. Here we report that loss of autophagy in lung macrophages and dendritic cells results in acute susceptibility of mice to high-dose Mtb infection, a model mimicking active tuberculosis. Rather than observing a role for autophagy in controlling Mtb replication in macrophages, we find that autophagy suppresses macrophage responses to Mtb that otherwise result in accumulation of myeloid-derived suppressor cells and subsequent defects in T cell responses.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAcquiring a sufficiently powered cohort of control samples matched to a case sample can be time-consuming or, in some cases, impossible. Accordingly, an ability to leverage genetic data from control samples that were already collected elsewhere could dramatically improve power in genetic association studies. Sharing of control samples can pose significant challenges, since most human genetic data are subject to strict sharing regulations.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFExtensive, large-scale single-cell profiling of healthy human blood at different ages is one of the critical pending tasks required to establish a framework for the systematic understanding of human aging. Here, using single-cell RNA/T cell receptor (TCR)/BCR-seq with protein feature barcoding, we profiled 317 samples from 166 healthy individuals aged 25-85 years old. From this, we generated a dataset from ∼2 million cells that described 55 subpopulations of blood immune cells.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFTH17 cells are implicated in the pathogenesis of multiple sclerosis and experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis (EAE). We previously reported that the transcription factor basic helix-loop-helix family member e40 (BHLHE40) marks cytokine-producing pathogenic TH cells during EAE, and that its expression in T cells is required for clinical disease. In this study, using dual reporter mice, we show BHLHE40 expression within TH1/17 and ex-TH17 cells following EAE induction.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe comprehensive assessment of long-term effects of reducing intake of energy (CALERIE-II; NCT00427193) clinical trial established that caloric restriction (CR) in humans lowers inflammation. The identity and mechanism of endogenous CR-mimetics that can be deployed to control obesity-associated inflammation and diseases are not well understood. Our studies have found that 2 years of 14% sustained CR in humans inhibits the expression of the matricellular protein, secreted protein acidic and rich in cysteine (SPARC), in adipose tissue.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFNK effector functions can be triggered by inflammatory cytokines and engagement of activating receptors. NK cell production of IFN-γ, an important immunoregulatory cytokine, exhibits activation-specific IFN-γ regulation. Resting murine NK cells exhibit activation-specific metabolic requirements for IFN-γ production, which are reversed for activating receptor-mediated stimulation following IL-15 priming.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFT cells are a critical component of the immune system, found in abundance in blood, secondary lymphoid organs, and peripheral tissues. As individuals age, T cells are particularly susceptible to changes, making them one of the most affected immune subsets. These changes can have significant implications for age-related dysregulations, including the development of low-grade inflammation - a hallmark of aging known as inflammaging.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe authors have requested that this preprint be removed from Research Square.
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