Developing Novel Host-Based Therapies Targeting Microbicidal Responses in Macrophages and Neutrophils to Combat Bacterial Antimicrobial Resistance

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.

Monocyte differentiation into macrophages represents a cornerstone process for host defense. Concomitantly, immunological imprinting of either tolerance or trained immunity determines the functional fate of macrophages and susceptibility to secondary infections. We characterized the transcriptomes and epigenomes in four primary cell types: monocytes and in vitro-differentiated naïve, tolerized, and trained macrophages. Inflammatory and metabolic pathways were modulated in macrophages, including decreased inflammasome activation, and we identified pathways functionally implicated in trained immunity. β-glucan training elicits an exclusive epigenetic signature, revealing a complex network of enhancers and promoters. Analysis of transcription factor motifs in deoxyribonuclease I hypersensitive sites at cell-type-specific epigenetic loci unveiled differentiation and treatment-specific repertoires. Altogether, we provide a resource to understand the epigenetic changes that underlie innate immunity in humans. Copyright © 2014, American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Reactive oxygen species (ROS) are essential components of the innate immune response against intracellular bacteria, and it is thought that professional phagocytes generate ROS primarily via the phagosomal NADPH oxidase (Phox) machinery 1 . However, recent studies have suggested that mitochondrial ROS (mROS) also contribute to macrophage bactericidal activity, although the mechanisms linking innate immune signaling to mitochondria for mROS generation remain unclear 2-4 . Here we demonstrate that engagement of a subset of Toll-like receptors (TLR1, TLR2 and TLR4) results in the recruitment of mitochondria to macrophage phagosomes and augments mROS production. This response involves translocation of the TLR signaling adapter tumor necrosis factor receptor-associated factor 6 (TRAF6) to mitochondria where it engages evolutionarily conserved signaling intermediate in Toll pathways (ECSIT), a protein implicated in mitochondrial respiratory chain assembly 5 . Interaction with TRAF6 leads to ECSIT ubiquitination and enrichment at the mitochondrial periphery, resulting in increased mitochondrial and cellular ROS generation. ECSIT and TRAF6 depleted macrophages exhibit decreased levels of TLR-induced ROS and are significantly impaired in their ability to kill intracellular bacteria. Additionally, reducing macrophage mROS by expressing catalase in mitochondria results in defective bacterial killing, confirming the role of mROS in bactericidal activity. These results therefore reveal a novel pathway linking innate immune signaling to mitochondria, implicate mROS as important components of antibacterial responses, and further establish mitochondria as hubs for innate immune signaling.