Diverse homeostatic and immunomodulatory roles of immune cells in the developing mouse lung at single cell resolution

  1. Racquel Domingo-Gonzalez
  2. Fabio Zanini
  3. Xibing Che
  4. Min Liu
  5. Robert C Jones
  6. Michael A Swift
  7. Stephen R Quake  Is a corresponding author
  8. David N Cornfield  Is a corresponding author
  9. Cristina M Alvira  Is a corresponding author
  1. Stanford University School of Medicine, United States
  2. Stanford University, United States
  3. Chan Zuckerberg Biohub, United States

Abstract

At birth, the lungs rapidly transition from a pathogen-free, hypoxic environment to a pathogen-rich, rhythmically distended air-liquid interface. Although many studies have focused on the adult lung, the perinatal lung remains unexplored. Here, we present an atlas of the murine lung immune compartment during early postnatal development. We show that the late embryonic lung is dominated by specialized proliferative macrophages with a surprising physical interaction with the developing vasculature. These macrophages disappear after birth and are replaced by a dynamic mixture of macrophage subtypes, dendritic cells, granulocytes, and lymphocytes. Detailed characterization of macrophage diversity revealed an orchestration of distinct subpopulations across postnatal development to fill context-specific functions in tissue remodeling, angiogenesis, and immunity. These data both broaden the putative roles for immune cells in the developing lung and provide a framework for understanding how external insults alter immune cell phenotype during a period of rapid lung growth and heightened vulnerability.

Data availability

Sequencing data have been deposited in GEO under accession code GSE147668. Gene count and metadata tables are also available on FigShare at https://figshare.com/articles/Diverse_homeostatic_and_immunomodulatory _roles_of_immune_cells_in_the_developing_mouse_lung_revealed_at_single_cell_resolution/12043365

The following data sets were generated
The following previously published data sets were used

Article and author information

Author details

  1. Racquel Domingo-Gonzalez

    Department of Pediatrics, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  2. Fabio Zanini

    Department of Bioengineering, Stanford University, Stanford, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0001-7097-8539
  3. Xibing Che

    Department of Pediatrics, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  4. Min Liu

    Department of Pediatrics, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  5. Robert C Jones

    Department of Bioengineering, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0001-7235-9854
  6. Michael A Swift

    Department of Chemical and Systems Biology, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  7. Stephen R Quake

    Chan Zuckerberg Biohub, San Francisco, United States
    For correspondence
    steve@quake-lab.org
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0002-1613-0809
  8. David N Cornfield

    Department of Pediatrics, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, United States
    For correspondence
    cornfield@stanford.edu
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  9. Cristina M Alvira

    Department of Pediatrics, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, United States
    For correspondence
    calvira@stanford.edu
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0002-6921-0001

Funding

National Institutes of Health (HL122918)

  • Cristina M Alvira

National Institutes of Health (HD092316)

  • David N Cornfield
  • Cristina M Alvira

The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.

Reviewing Editor

  1. Emma L Rawlins, University of Cambridge, United Kingdom

Ethics

Animal experimentation: This study was performed in strict accordance with the recommendations in the Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals of the National Institutes of Health. All of the animals were handled according to approved institutional animal care and use committee (IACUC) protocols (#19087) of Stanford University School of Medicine.

Version history

  1. Received: March 13, 2020
  2. Accepted: May 13, 2020
  3. Accepted Manuscript published: June 2, 2020 (version 1)
  4. Version of Record published: July 13, 2020 (version 2)

Copyright

© 2020, Domingo-Gonzalez et al.

This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.

Metrics

  • 5,563
    views
  • 804
    downloads
  • 39
    citations

Views, downloads and citations are aggregated across all versions of this paper published by eLife.

Download links

A two-part list of links to download the article, or parts of the article, in various formats.

Downloads (link to download the article as PDF)

Open citations (links to open the citations from this article in various online reference manager services)

Cite this article (links to download the citations from this article in formats compatible with various reference manager tools)

  1. Racquel Domingo-Gonzalez
  2. Fabio Zanini
  3. Xibing Che
  4. Min Liu
  5. Robert C Jones
  6. Michael A Swift
  7. Stephen R Quake
  8. David N Cornfield
  9. Cristina M Alvira
(2020)
Diverse homeostatic and immunomodulatory roles of immune cells in the developing mouse lung at single cell resolution
eLife 9:e56890.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.56890

Share this article

https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.56890

Further reading

    1. Developmental Biology
    Zhimin Xu, Zhao Wang ... Yingchuan B Qi
    Research Article

    Precise developmental timing control is essential for organism formation and function, but its mechanisms are unclear. In C. elegans, the microRNA lin-4 critically regulates developmental timing by post-transcriptionally downregulating the larval-stage-fate controller LIN-14. However, the mechanisms triggering the activation of lin-4 expression toward the end of the first larval stage remain unknown. We demonstrate that the transmembrane transcription factor MYRF-1 is necessary for lin-4 activation. MYRF-1 is initially localized on the cell membrane, and its increased cleavage and nuclear accumulation coincide with lin-4 expression timing. MYRF-1 regulates lin-4 expression cell-autonomously and hyperactive MYRF-1 can prematurely drive lin-4 expression in embryos and young first-stage larvae. The tandem lin-4 promoter DNA recruits MYRF-1GFP to form visible loci in the nucleus, suggesting that MYRF-1 directly binds to the lin-4 promoter. Our findings identify a crucial link in understanding developmental timing regulation and establish MYRF-1 as a key regulator of lin-4 expression.

    1. Developmental Biology
    2. Structural Biology and Molecular Biophysics
    Samuel C Griffiths, Jia Tan ... Hsin-Yi Henry Ho
    Research Article Updated

    The receptor tyrosine kinase ROR2 mediates noncanonical WNT5A signaling to orchestrate tissue morphogenetic processes, and dysfunction of the pathway causes Robinow syndrome, brachydactyly B, and metastatic diseases. The domain(s) and mechanisms required for ROR2 function, however, remain unclear. We solved the crystal structure of the extracellular cysteine-rich (CRD) and Kringle (Kr) domains of ROR2 and found that, unlike other CRDs, the ROR2 CRD lacks the signature hydrophobic pocket that binds lipids/lipid-modified proteins, such as WNTs, suggesting a novel mechanism of ligand reception. Functionally, we showed that the ROR2 CRD, but not other domains, is required and minimally sufficient to promote WNT5A signaling, and Robinow mutations in the CRD and the adjacent Kr impair ROR2 secretion and function. Moreover, using function-activating and -perturbing antibodies against the Frizzled (FZ) family of WNT receptors, we demonstrate the involvement of FZ in WNT5A-ROR signaling. Thus, ROR2 acts via its CRD to potentiate the function of a receptor super-complex that includes FZ to transduce WNT5A signals.