KIT Is Required for Fetal Liver Hematopoiesis

We have created a compendium of single cell transcriptomic data from the model organism Mus musculus comprising more than 100,000 cells from 20 organs and tissues. These data represent a new resource for cell biology, reveal gene expression in poorly characterized cell populations, and allow for direct and controlled comparison of gene expression in cell types shared between tissues, such as T-lymphocytes and endothelial cells from different anatomical locations. Two distinct technical approaches were used for most organs: one approach, microfluidic droplet-based 3’-end counting, enabled the survey of thousands of cells at relatively low coverage, while the other, FACS-based full length transcript analysis, enabled characterization of cell types with high sensitivity and coverage. The cumulative data provide the foundation for an atlas of transcriptomic cell biology.

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.

Most haematopoietic cells renew from adult haematopoietic stem cells (HSCs), however, macrophages in adult tissues can self-maintain independently of HSCs. Progenitors with macrophage potential in vitro have been described in the yolk sac before emergence of HSCs, and fetal macrophages can develop independently of Myb, a transcription factor required for HSC, and can persist in adult tissues. Nevertheless, the origin of adult macrophages and the qualitative and quantitative contributions of HSC and putative non-HSC-derived progenitors are still unclear. Here we show in mice that the vast majority of adult tissue-resident macrophages in liver (Kupffer cells), brain (microglia), epidermis (Langerhans cells) and lung (alveolar macrophages) originate from a Tie2(+) (also known as Tek) cellular pathway generating Csf1r(+) erythro-myeloid progenitors (EMPs) distinct from HSCs. EMPs develop in the yolk sac at embryonic day (E) 8.5, migrate and colonize the nascent fetal liver before E10.5, and give rise to fetal erythrocytes, macrophages, granulocytes and monocytes until at least E16.5. Subsequently, HSC-derived cells replace erythrocytes, granulocytes and monocytes. Kupffer cells, microglia and Langerhans cells are only marginally replaced in one-year-old mice, whereas alveolar macrophages may be progressively replaced in ageing mice. Our fate-mapping experiments identify, in the fetal liver, a sequence of yolk sac EMP-derived and HSC-derived haematopoiesis, and identify yolk sac EMPs as a common origin for tissue macrophages.