Molawi et al. examine the origin and cellular dynamics of macrophages in the heart during postnatal development. Cardiac macrophages derived from CX3CR1+ embryonic progenitors persist into adulthood, but the contribution of these cells to resident macrophages declines after birth with diminished self-renewal as the mice age. Over time, the heart is progressively reconstituted with bone marrow–derived macrophages, even in the absence of inflammation.

Under stress conditions such as infection or inflammation the body rapidly needs to generate new blood cells that are adapted to the challenge. Haematopoietic cytokines are known to increase output of specific mature cells by affecting survival, expansion and differentiation of lineage-committed progenitors1,2, but it has been debated whether long-term haematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) are susceptible to direct lineage-specifying effects of cytokines. Although genetic changes in transcription factor balance can sensitize HSCs to cytokine instruction3, the initiation of HSC commitment is generally thought to be triggered by stochastic fluctuation in cell-intrinsic regulators such as lineage-specific transcription factors4–7, leaving cytokines to ensure survival and proliferation of the progeny cells8,9. Here we show that macrophage colony-stimulating factor (M-CSF, also called CSF1), a myeloid cytokine released during infection and inflammation, can directly induce the myeloid master regulator PU.1 and instruct myeloid cell-fate change in mouse HSCs, independently of selective survival or proliferation. Video imaging and single-cell gene expression analysis revealed that stimulation of highly purified HSCs with M-CSF in culture resulted in activation of the PU.1 promoter and an increased number of PU.1+ cells with myeloid gene signature and differentiation potential. In vivo, high systemic levels of M-CSF directly stimulated M-CSF-receptor-dependent activation of endogenous PU.1 protein in single HSCs and induced a PU.1-dependent myeloid differentiation preference. Our data demonstrate that lineage-specific cytokines can act directly on HSCs in vitro and in vivo to instruct a change of cell identity. This fundamentally changes the current view of how HSCs respond to environmental challenge and implicates stress-induced cytokines as direct instructors of HSC fate.

BackgroundInvestigations into both the pathophysiology and therapeutic targets in muscle dystrophies have been hampered by the limited proliferative capacity of human myoblasts. Isolation of reliable and stable immortalized cell lines from patient biopsies is a powerful tool for investigating pathological mechanisms, including those associated with muscle aging, and for developing innovative gene-based, cell-based or pharmacological biotherapies.MethodsUsing transduction with both telomerase-expressing and cyclin-dependent kinase 4-expressing vectors, we were able to generate a battery of immortalized human muscle stem-cell lines from patients with various neuromuscular disorders.ResultsThe immortalized human cell lines from patients with Duchenne muscular dystrophy, facioscapulohumeral muscular dystrophy, oculopharyngeal muscular dystrophy, congenital muscular dystrophy, and limb-girdle muscular dystrophy type 2B had greatly increased proliferative capacity, and maintained their potential to differentiate both in vitro and in vivo after transplantation into regenerating muscle of immunodeficient mice.ConclusionsDystrophic cellular models are required as a supplement to animal models to assess cellular mechanisms, such as signaling defects, or to perform high-throughput screening for therapeutic molecules. These investigations have been conducted for many years on cells derived from animals, and would greatly benefit from having human cell models with prolonged proliferative capacity. Furthermore, the possibility to assess in vivo the regenerative capacity of these cells extends their potential use. The innovative cellular tools derived from several different neuromuscular diseases as described in this report will allow investigation of the pathophysiology of these disorders and assessment of new therapeutic strategies.

Highlights d LT-HSCs conserve epigenetic memory of previous infectious challenge d Increased transcriptional response of open myeloid enhancers to secondary stimulation d Memory improves myeloid differentiation and resistance to secondary infection

Most cells in adult tissues are nondividing. In skeletal muscle, differentiated myofibers have exited the cell cycle permanently, whereas satellite stem cells withdraw transiently, returning to active proliferation to repair damaged myofibers. We have examined the epigenetic mechanisms operating in conditional quiescence by analyzing the function of a predicted chromatin regulator mixed lineage leukemia 5 (MLL5) in a culture model of reversible arrest. MLL5 is induced in quiescent myoblasts and regulates both the cell cycle and differentiation via a hierarchy of chromatin and transcriptional regulators. Knocking down MLL5 delays entry of quiescent myoblasts into S phase, but hastens S-phase completion. Cyclin A2 (CycA) mRNA is no longer restricted to S phase, but is induced throughout G 0/G1, with activation of the cell cycle regulated element (CCRE) in the CycA promoter. Overexpressed MLL5 physically associates with the CCRE and impairs its activity. MLL5 also regulates CycA indirectly: Cux, an activator of CycA promoter and S phase is induced in RNAi cells, and Brm/Brg1, CCRE-binding repressors that promote differentiation are repressed. In knockdown cells, H3K4 methylation at the CCRE is reduced, reflecting quantitative global changes in methylation. MLL5 appears to lack intrinsic histone methyl transferase activity, but regulates expression of histone-modifying enzymes LSD1 and SET7/9, suggesting an indirect mechanism. Finally, expression of muscle regulators Pax7, Myf5, and myogenin is impaired in MLL5 knockdown cells, which are profoundly differentiation defective. Collectively, our results suggest that MLL5 plays an integral role in novel chromatin regulatory mechanisms that suppress inappropriate expression of S-phase-promoting genes and maintain expression of determination genes in quiescent cells.Brm ͉ CCRE ͉ Pax7 ͉ quiescence ͉ reversible arrest

The originally published version of this article contained a number of minor mistakes and typos that were accidentally introduced by the publisher during the production process, including an incorrect definition for GMP ("granulocyte-monocyte progenitors guanosine monophosphate" instead of the correct "granulocyte-monocyte progenitors"), and minor mistakes and typos that the publisher failed to correct, including changing "(D)" to "(E)" in the legend to Figure 4C and adding text to the legend to Figure 1 to clarify that the disease-free survival curves of mice described in (A) and (C) appear in (B) and (D), respectively. All such mistakes have now been corrected. The publisher apologizes for these errors and any resulting confusion.

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Sieweke and colleagues show that M-CSF/CSF-1 treatment after myeloablation and hematopoietic stem/progenitor cell transplantation results in increased production of mature myeloid donor cells and protects against opportunistic pathogens.