The Mononuclear Phagocytic System. Generation of Diversity

Defining the origins and developmental pathways of tissue-resident macrophages should help refine our understanding of the role of these cells in various disease settings and enable the design of novel macrophage-targeted therapies. In recent years the long-held belief that macrophage populations in the adult are continuously replenished by monocytes from the bone marrow (BM) has been overturned with the advent of new techniques to dissect cellular ontogeny. The new paradigm suggests that several tissue-resident macrophage populations are seeded during waves of embryonic hematopoiesis and self-maintain independently of BM contribution during adulthood. However, the exact nature of the embryonic progenitors that give rise to adult tissue-resident macrophages is still debated, and the mechanisms enabling macrophage population maintenance in the adult are undefined. Here, we review the emergence of these concepts and discuss current controversies and future directions in macrophage biology.

Using stable isotope labeling, Patel et al. establish the lifespan of all three human monocyte subsets that circulate in dynamic equilibrium; in steady state, classical monocytes are short-lived precursors with the potential to become intermediate and nonclassical monocytes. They highlight that systemic inflammation induces an emergency release of classical monocytes into the circulation.

The carbohydrate polymers known as beta-1,3-d-glucans exert potent effects on the immune system - stimulating antitumour and antimicrobial activity, for example - by binding to receptors on macrophages and other white blood cells and activating them. Although beta-glucans are known to bind to receptors, such as complement receptor 3 (ref. 1), there is evidence that another beta-glucan receptor is present on macrophages. Here we identify this unknown receptor as dectin-1 (ref. 2), a finding that provides new insights into the innate immune recognition of beta-glucans.