Specialized immune cells called macrophages are highly important for the homeostasis of tissues and have been implicated as important mediators during tissue development and repair processes. Major open questions in the field over the last years have been whether tissue macrophages derive from the yolk-sac or the fetal liver, when these cells migrate into tissue, how the cells interact with the tissues and how they integrate tissue-derived signals.

Using single-cell RNA sequencing to resolve macrophage development during embryogenesis with unprecedented resolution, the LIMES researchers Dr. Marc Beyer and Prof. Joachim Schultze could show now in collaboration with the groups of Dr. Frederic Geissmann, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York/USA, and Dr. Christoph Bock, CeMM Research Center for Molecular Medicine, Vienna, that yolk-sac derived macrophages are instructed at local sites during tissue development to acquire tissue-specific properties and are not pre-committed during their development from erythro-myeloid precursors to early embryonic macrophages.

Publication: Elvira Mass, Ivan Ballesteros, Matthias Farlik, Florian Halbritter, Patrick Günther, Lucile Crozet, Christian E. Jacome-Galarza, Kristian Händler, Johanna Klughammer, Yasuhiro Kobayashi, Elisa Gomez-Perdiguero,  Joachim L. Schultze, Marc Beyer, Christoph Bock, Frederic Geissmann: Specification of tissue – resident macrophages during organogenesis. Science. DOI: 10.1126/science.aaf4238

Contact: Dr. Marc Beyer
LIMES Institut (Life and Medical Sciences)
Genomik und Immunregulation
Universität Bonn
Tel. 02 28 / 73 -  6 27 92 
E-Mail marc.beyer@uni-bonn.de