Most tissues of the body harbor resident macrophages. Yet, macrophages are phenotypically and functionally heterogeneous, a reflection of the diversity of tissue environments in which they reside. In addition to maintaining tissue homeostasis and responding to invading pathogens, macrophages contribute to numerous pathological processes, making them an attractive potential target for therapeutic intervention. To do so, however, will require a detailed understanding of macrophage origins, the mechanisms that maintain them, and their functional attributes in different tissues and disease contexts.Macrophage ontology has long engendered controversy 1,2 . Nevertheless, the concept that tissue macrophages develop exclusively from circulating bone marrow-derived monocytes has prevailed for nearly a half century 3 . Accumulated evidence, however, including recent studies using sophisticated fate-mapping approaches, have determined that some tissue macrophages and their precursors are established embryonically in the yolk sac (YS) and fetal liver before the onset of definitive hematopoiesis [4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11] . Regardless of their origin, tissue macrophages can maintain themselves in adulthood by self-renewal independent of blood monocytes 12,13 .Gene-expression profiling of macrophage populations from several tissues has established that only a small number of transcripts are expressed by all macrophages 14 , indicating the importance of the context provided by the tissue when studying macrophage function in homeostasis and disease. The normal arterial wall contains many tissue resident macrophages that contribute crucially to immunity, tissue homeostasis and wound healing following injury 15. However, the regulatory networks, ancestry and mechanisms that maintain arterial macrophages remain unknown.Using gene expression analysis, we show that arterial macrophages constitute a distinct population among tissue macrophages. Multiple fate mapping approaches demonstrated that arterial macrophages arise embryonically from CX 3 CR1 + precursors and postnatally from bone marrow-derived monocytes that colonize the tissue during a brief period immediately after birth.In adulthood, arterial macrophages were maintained by CX 3 CR1-CX 3 CL1 interactions and local proliferation without significant further contribution from blood monocytes. Self-renewal also sustained arterial macrophages after severe depletion during polymicrobial sepsis, rapidly restoring them to functional homeostasis. ResultsPhenotype and gene expression profiling of arterial macrophages. (Fig. 1a).Principal component analysis revealed a distinct transcriptome in arterial macrophages, which clustered near other macrophage populations including microglia, alveolar macrophages, and splenic red pulp macrophages, as characterized by the Immunological Genome Consortium (Fig. 1b, Supplementary Fig. 1a) 14. Stringent comparison of gene-expression profiles among arterial, brain, alveolar and splenic red pulp macrophages revealed 212 transcripts that were at ...

While the preponderance of morbidity and mortality in medulloblastoma patients are due to metastatic disease, most research focuses on the primary tumor due to a dearth of metastatic tissue samples and model systems. Medulloblastoma metastases are found almost exclusively on the leptomeningeal surface of the brain and spinal cord; dissemination is therefore thought to occur through shedding of primary tumor cells into the cerebrospinal fluid followed by distal re-implantation on the leptomeninges. We present evidence for medulloblastoma circulating tumor cells (CTCs) in therapy-naive patients and demonstrate in vivo, through flank xenografting and parabiosis, that medulloblastoma CTCs can spread through the blood to the leptomeningeal space to form leptomeningeal metastases. Medulloblastoma leptomeningeal metastases express high levels of the chemokine CCL2, and expression of CCL2 in medulloblastoma in vivo is sufficient to drive leptomeningeal dissemination. Hematogenous dissemination of medulloblastoma offers a new opportunity to diagnose and treat lethal disseminated medulloblastoma.

Regions of the normal arterial intima predisposed to atherosclerosis are sites of ongoing monocyte trafficking and also contain resident myeloid cells with features of dendritic cells. However, the pathophysiological roles of these cells are poorly understood. Here we found that intimal myeloid cells underwent reverse transendothelial migration (RTM) into the arterial circulation after systemic stimulation of pattern-recognition receptors (PRRs). This process was dependent on expression of the chemokine receptor CCR7 and its ligand CCL19 by intimal myeloid cells. In mice infected with the intracellular pathogen Chlamydia muridarum, blood monocytes disseminated infection to the intima. Subsequent CCL19-CCR7-dependent RTM was critical for the clearance of intimal C. muridarum. This process was inhibited by hypercholesterolemia. Thus, RTM protects the normal arterial intima, and compromised RTM during atherogenesis might contribute to the intracellular retention of pathogens in atherosclerotic lesions.

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Highlights d Hypercholesterolemia increases c-Myb expression in the bone marrow d Reduced c-Myb activity attenuates atherosclerosis progression d c-Myb potentiates atherosclerosis directly through its effects on B lymphocytes d c-Myb limits atheroprotective IgM responses

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Our understanding of vascular pathology relies on inducible animal models of disease that remain poorly described, and concern exists regarding indirect effects of the inducing agents. We sought to perform a detailed characterization of the immune response to a commonly used murine aneurysm model. Aneurysms were generated in 10 adult C57/Bl6 mice using 2 weeks of oral beta-amino propriono-nitrile (BAPN) administration and 4 weeks of angiotensin-2 (AT2) delivered via osmotic pump. FACS analysis was used to characterize progenitor and hematopoietic cell lines in bone marrow, blood and aorta. 3 mice died of aortic rupture between days 8 and 9. The remaining 7 were compared to age-matched controls. BAPN/AT2 treatment caused aortic dilatation at all aortic regions from the root to the descending thoracic aorta (P<0.01). The suprarenal aorta was aneurysmal in all BAPN/AT2 mice with a maximum diameter of 1.86±0.1mm compared to controls 0.98±0.03mm (P<0.001). In the blood, total cells counts at day 2, 16 and 28 were increased (P<0.001). CD45-2 and B-cell counts were significantly increased in the BAPN/AT2 mice compared to controls (P<0.001). The aorta of BAPN/AT2 mice had significantly increased macrophage counts (P<0.001) with no difference in monocytes, neutrophils, T or B cell counts. Aortic tissue macrophages were predominantly G0 G1 (97±1%) phase. The bone marrow CD45-2 compartment was similar in aneurysmal BAPN/AT2 and control mice but Ly6C lo-inter monocytes were increased in BAPN/AT2 mice. Marrow CD117+/lin- hematopoietic progenitor and stem cells (P=0.4), and differential counts of CD117+/Sca1+ hematopoietic stem cells and CD117+/Sca1- progenitor cells were similar in control and BAPN/AT2 treated mice. BAPN/AT2 induces aortic disease with aneurysmal degeneration of the suprarenal aorta. We observed a significant decrease in aortic macrophage proliferation suggestive of a mechanism of expansion independent of local macrophage proliferation. We did not observe a significant change in the bone marrow stem or progenitor cell compartment suggesting aortic injury is driving inflammation rather than direct stimulus of the marrow compartment by BAPN/AT2.

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