Neuron-associated macrophage proliferation in the sensory ganglia is associated with peripheral nerve injury-induced neuropathic pain involving CX3CR1 signaling

Abstract

Resident macrophages are distributed across all tissues and are highly heterogeneous due to adaptation to different tissue-specific environments. The resident macrophages of the sensory ganglia (sensory neuron-associated macrophages, sNAMs) are in close contact with the cell body of primary sensory neurons and might play physiological and pathophysiological roles. After peripheral nerve injury, there is an increase in the population of macrophage in the sensory ganglia, which have been implicated in different conditions, including neuropathic pain development. However, it is still under debate whether macrophage accumulation in the sensory ganglia after peripheral nerve injury is due to the local proliferation of resident macrophages or a result of blood monocyte infiltration. Here, we confirmed that the number of macrophages increased in the sensory ganglia after the spared nerve injury (SNI) model in mice. Using different approaches, we found that the increase in the number of macrophages in the sensory ganglia after SNI is a consequence of the proliferation of resident CX3CR1+ macrophages, which participate in the development of neuropathic pain, but not due to infiltration of peripheral blood monocytes. These proliferating macrophages are the source of pro-inflammatory cytokines such as TNF and IL-1b. In addition, we found that CX3CR1 signaling is involved in the sNAMs proliferation and neuropathic pain development after peripheral nerve injury. In summary, these results indicated that peripheral nerve injury leads to sNAMs proliferation in the sensory ganglia in a CX3CR1-dependent manner accounting for neuropathic pain development. In conclusion, sNAMs proliferation could be modulated to change pathophysiological conditions such as chronic neuropathic pain.

Data availability

All data generated or analyzed during this study are included in the manuscript. Public scRNA-seq data are available in Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) database under the series number GSE139103 (Avraham et al. 2020).

The following previously published data sets were used

Article and author information

Author details

  1. Rafaela Mano Guimarães

    Department of Pharmacology, University of Sao Paulo, Ribeirao Preto, Brazil
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  2. Conceição Elidianne Aníbal-Silva

    Department of Pharmacology, University of Sao Paulo, Ribeirão Preto, Brazil
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  3. Marcela Davoli-Ferreira

    Department of Pharmacology, University of Sao Paulo, Ribeirao Preto, Brazil
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  4. Francisco Isaac Fernandes Gomes

    Department of Pharmacology, University of Sao Paulo, Ribeirao Preto, Brazil
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  5. Atlante Silva Mendes

    Department of Pharmacology, University of Sao Paulo, Ribeirao Preto, Brazil
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  6. Maria Claudia Magalhães Cavallini

    Department of Pharmacology, University of Sao Paulo, Ribeirão Preto, Brazil
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  7. Miriam Mendes Fonseca

    Department of Pharmacology, University of Sao Paulo, Ribeirao Preto, Brazil
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  8. Samara Damasceno

    Department of Pharmacology, University of Sao Paulo, Ribeirao Preto, Brazil
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  9. Larissa Pinto Andrade

    Department of Pharmacology, University of Sao Paulo, Ribeirao Preto, Brazil
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  10. Marco Colonna

    Department of Pathology and Immunology, Washington University in St. Louis, Saint Louis, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  11. Cyril Rivat

    Institut des Neurosciences de Montpellier, Université de Montpellier, Montpellier, France
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  12. Fernando Q Cunha

    Department of Pharmacology, University of Sao Paulo, Ribeirão Preto, Brazil
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  13. José C Alves-Filho

    Department of Pharmacology, University of Sao Paulo, Ribeirao Preto, Brazil
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  14. Thiago Mattar Cunha

    Department of Pharmacology, University of Sao Paulo, Ribeirao Preto, Brazil
    For correspondence
    thicunha@fmrp.usp.br
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0003-1084-0065

Funding

The authors declare that there was no funding for this work.

Ethics

Animal experimentation: Animal care and handling procedures were under the guidelines of the International Association for the Study of Pain for those animals used in pain research and were approved by the Committee for Ethics in Animal Research of the Ribeirao Preto Medical School- University of São Paulo (Process number 002/2017).

Copyright

© 2023, Guimarães 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

  • 2,331
    views
  • 395
    downloads
  • 16
    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. Rafaela Mano Guimarães
  2. Conceição Elidianne Aníbal-Silva
  3. Marcela Davoli-Ferreira
  4. Francisco Isaac Fernandes Gomes
  5. Atlante Silva Mendes
  6. Maria Claudia Magalhães Cavallini
  7. Miriam Mendes Fonseca
  8. Samara Damasceno
  9. Larissa Pinto Andrade
  10. Marco Colonna
  11. Cyril Rivat
  12. Fernando Q Cunha
  13. José C Alves-Filho
  14. Thiago Mattar Cunha
(2023)
Neuron-associated macrophage proliferation in the sensory ganglia is associated with peripheral nerve injury-induced neuropathic pain involving CX3CR1 signaling
eLife 12:e78515.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.78515

Share this article

https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.78515

Further reading

    1. Immunology and Inflammation
    2. Microbiology and Infectious Disease
    Gregory T Walker, Araceli Perez-Lopez ... Manuela Raffatellu
    Research Article

    The chemokine CCL28 is highly expressed in mucosal tissues, but its role during infection is not well understood. Here we show that CCL28 promotes neutrophil accumulation in the gut of mice infected with Salmonella and in the lung of mice infected with Acinetobacter. Neutrophils isolated from the infected mucosa expressed the CCL28 receptors CCR3 and, to a lesser extent, CCR10, on their surface. The functional consequences of CCL28 deficiency varied between the two infections: Ccl28-/- mice were highly susceptible to Salmonella gut infection but highly resistant to otherwise lethal Acinetobacter lung infection. In vitro, unstimulated neutrophils harbored pre-formed intracellular CCR3 that was rapidly mobilized to the cell surface following phagocytosis or inflammatory stimuli. Moreover, CCL28 stimulation enhanced neutrophil antimicrobial activity, production of reactive oxygen species, and formation of extracellular traps, all processes largely dependent on CCR3. Consistent with the different outcomes in the two infection models, neutrophil stimulation with CCL28 boosted the killing of Salmonella but not Acinetobacter. CCL28 thus plays a critical role in the immune response to mucosal pathogens by increasing neutrophil accumulation and activation, which can enhance pathogen clearance but also exacerbate disease depending on the mucosal site and the infectious agent.

    1. Immunology and Inflammation
    2. Microbiology and Infectious Disease
    Daniel Spari, Annina Schmid ... Guido Beldi
    Research Article

    Sepsis causes millions of deaths per year worldwide and is a current global health priority declared by the WHO. Sepsis-related deaths are a result of dysregulated inflammatory immune responses indicating the need to develop strategies to target inflammation. An important mediator of inflammation is extracellular adenosine triphosphate (ATP) that is released by inflamed host cells and tissues, and also by bacteria in a strain-specific and growth-dependent manner. Here, we investigated the mechanisms by which bacteria release ATP. Using genetic mutant strains of Escherichia coli (E. coli), we demonstrate that ATP release is dependent on ATP synthase within the inner bacterial membrane. In addition, impaired integrity of the outer bacterial membrane notably contributes to ATP release and is associated with bacterial death. In a mouse model of abdominal sepsis, local effects of bacterial ATP were analyzed using a transformed E. coli bearing an arabinose-inducible periplasmic apyrase hydrolyzing ATP to be released. Abrogating bacterial ATP release shows that bacterial ATP suppresses local immune responses, resulting in reduced neutrophil counts and impaired survival. In addition, bacterial ATP has systemic effects via its transport in outer membrane vesicles (OMV). ATP-loaded OMV are quickly distributed throughout the body and upregulated expression of genes activating degranulation in neutrophils, potentially contributing to the exacerbation of sepsis severity. This study reveals mechanisms of bacterial ATP release and its local and systemic roles in sepsis pathogenesis.