Liver macrophage changes during early adaptation to alcohol exposure
Ontology highlight
ABSTRACT:
ORGANISM(S): Mus musculus
PROVIDER: GSE310021 | GEO | 2025/11/17
REPOSITORIES: GEO
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Project description:Background & Aims: Liver macrophages are heterogeneous and play an important role in alcohol_x0002_associated liver disease (ALD) but there is limited understanding of the functions of specific macrophage subsets in the disease. We used a Western Diet Alcohol (WDA) mouse model of ALD to examine the hepatic myeloid cell compartment by scRNA seq and targeted Kupffer cell (KC) ablation to understand the diversity and function of liver macrophages in ALD. Approach and Results: In the WDA liver, KCs and infiltrating monocytes/macrophages (IMs) each represented about 50% of the myeloid pool. Five major KC clusters all expressed genes associated with receptor mediated endocytosis and lipid metabolism, but most were predicted to be non_x0002_inflammatory and antifibrotic with one minor KC cluster having a pro-inflammatory and extracellular matrix degradation gene signature. IM clusters, in contrast, were predicted to be pro_x0002_inflammatory and pro-fibrotic. In vivo diphtheria toxin based selective KC ablation during alcohol exposure resulted in a liver failure phenotype with increases in PT/INR and bilirubin, loss of differentiated hepatocyte gene expression, and an increase in expression of hepatocyte progenitor markers such as EpCAM, CK-7 and Igf2bp3. Gene set enrichment analysis of whole liver RNAseq from the KC ablated WDA mice showed a similar pattern as seen in human alcoholic hepatitis. Conclusions: In this ALD model, KCs are anti-inflammatory and are critical for maintenance of hepatocyte differentiation. IMs are largely pro-inflammatory and contribute more to liver fibrosis. Future targeting of specific macrophage subsets may provide new approaches to treatment of liver failure and fibrosis in ALD.
2024-10-25 | GSE269059 | GEO
Project description:Background & Aims: Liver macrophages are heterogeneous and play an important role in alcohol_x0002_associated liver disease (ALD) but there is limited understanding of the functions of specific macrophage subsets in the disease. We used a Western Diet Alcohol (WDA) mouse model of ALD to examine the hepatic myeloid cell compartment by scRNA seq and targeted Kupffer cell (KC) ablation to understand the diversity and function of liver macrophages in ALD. Approach and Results: In the WDA liver, KCs and infiltrating monocytes/macrophages (IMs) each represented about 50% of the myeloid pool. Five major KC clusters all expressed genes associated with receptor mediated endocytosis and lipid metabolism, but most were predicted to be non_x0002_inflammatory and antifibrotic with one minor KC cluster having a pro-inflammatory and extracellular matrix degradation gene signature. IM clusters, in contrast, were predicted to be pro_x0002_inflammatory and pro-fibrotic. In vivo diphtheria toxin based selective KC ablation during alcohol exposure resulted in a liver failure phenotype with increases in PT/INR and bilirubin, loss of differentiated hepatocyte gene expression, and an increase in expression of hepatocyte progenitor markers such as EpCAM, CK-7 and Igf2bp3. Gene set enrichment analysis of whole liver RNAseq from the KC ablated WDA mice showed a similar pattern as seen in human alcoholic hepatitis. Conclusions: In this ALD model, KCs are anti-inflammatory and are critical for maintenance of hepatocyte differentiation. IMs are largely pro-inflammatory and contribute more to liver fibrosis. Future targeting of specific macrophage subsets may provide new approaches to treatment of liver failure and fibrosis in ALD.
2024-10-25 | GSE269058 | GEO
Project description:Kupffer cells (KCs) are tissue-resident macrophages which colonize the liver early during embryogenesis. KCs start to acquire a tissue-specific transcriptional signature immediately after colonizing the liver, mature together with the tissue, and adapt to the tissue?s functions. Throughout development and adulthood, KCs have distinct core functions that are essential for liver and organismal homeostasis, such as supporting fetal erythropoiesis as well as postnatal erythrocyte recycling and liver metabolism. However, whether perturbations of macrophage core functions during development contribute to or cause disease at postnatal stages is poorly understood. Here, we utilize a mouse model of maternal obesity to perturb KC functions during gestation. We show that offspring exposed to maternal obesity develop fatty liver disease, driven by aberrant developmental programming of KCs that persists into adulthood. Programmed KCs mediate lipid uptake by hepatocytes through apolipoprotein secretion. KC depletion in neonates born to obese mothers, followed by replenishment with exogenous monocytes, rescues the fatty liver disease. The transcriptional programming of KCs and the fatty liver disease phenotype are also rescued by genetic depletion of hypoxia-inducible factor alpha (Hif1?) in macrophages during gestation. These results establish developmental perturbation of KC functions as a cause for the development of fatty liver disease in adult life and, thereby, place fetal-derived macrophages as intergenerational messengers within the concept of developmental origins of health and diseases.
2025-09-01 | PXD058285 | Pride
Project description:Kupffer cells (KCs) are tissue-resident macrophages which colonize the developing liver early during embryogenesis1. Throughout development and adulthood, KCs have distinct core functions that are essential for liver and organismal homeostasis, such as supporting fetal erythropoiesis as well as postnatal erythrocyte recycling and liver metabolism2. KCs acquire their tissue-specific transcriptional signature immediately after colonizing the liver, mature together with the tissue, and adapt to the tissue’s function1,3,4. However, whether perturbation of macrophage core functions during development may contribute to or cause disease at postnatal stages is poorly understood. Here, we utilize a maternal obesity model to disturb KC functions during gestation. We show that offspring born to obese mothers develop fatty liver disease that is accompanied by a local pro-inflammatory response, a phenotype that is augmented if the offspring is kept on control diet after birth. Further, transcriptional analyses reveal that KCs undergo developmental programming through the maternal high-fat diet, which lasts until adulthood. The offspring’s KC developmental programming is irreversible despite the switch to control diet and leads to increased lipid uptake in hepatocytes mediated via paracrine factors stemming from KCs. The transcriptional programming of KCs and the fatty liver disease phenotype are rescued by genetic depletion of hypoxia-inducible factor alpha (Hif1a) in macrophages during gestation. These results demonstrate that macrophages rely on an undisturbed development to fulfil their core functions and support organ homeostasis during adulthood, and establish developmental programming of KCs as a therapeutic strategy for metabolic disorders, such as fatty liver disease.
2023-08-22 | GSE237405 | GEO
Project description:Kupffer cells (KCs) are tissue-resident macrophages which colonize the developing liver early during embryogenesis1. Throughout development and adulthood, KCs have distinct core functions that are essential for liver and organismal homeostasis, such as supporting fetal erythropoiesis as well as postnatal erythrocyte recycling and liver metabolism2. KCs acquire their tissue-specific transcriptional signature immediately after colonizing the liver, mature together with the tissue, and adapt to the tissue’s function1,3,4. However, whether perturbation of macrophage core functions during development may contribute to or cause disease at postnatal stages is poorly understood. Here, we utilize a maternal obesity model to disturb KC functions during gestation. We show that offspring born to obese mothers develop fatty liver disease that is accompanied by a local pro-inflammatory response, a phenotype that is augmented if the offspring is kept on control diet after birth. Further, transcriptional analyses reveal that KCs undergo developmental programming through the maternal high-fat diet, which lasts until adulthood. The offspring’s KC developmental programming is irreversible despite the switch to control diet and leads to increased lipid uptake in hepatocytes mediated via paracrine factors stemming from KCs. The transcriptional programming of KCs and the fatty liver disease phenotype are rescued by genetic depletion of hypoxia-inducible factor alpha (Hif1a) in macrophages during gestation. These results demonstrate that macrophages rely on an undisturbed development to fulfil their core functions and support organ homeostasis during adulthood, and establish developmental programming of KCs as a therapeutic strategy for metabolic disorders, such as fatty liver disease.
2023-08-22 | GSE237393 | GEO
Project description:Background and aims: Macrophages are highly versatile innate phagocytes present in most organs of the body and perform various homeostatic and immunological functions. Macrophages are classically known for their important roles in compacting pathogens. Whereas, increasing evidence supports that exposure to infections invokes prolonged changes to tissue-resident macrophages, it remains unclear whether this occurs to liver macrophages. Methods: Here, we utilized a model of parasitic infection invoked by the protozoan parasite Trypanosoma brucei brucei to investigate whether infection history can durably reshape hepatic macrophage identity and function. Employing a combination of genetic lineage-tracing, single cell transcriptomics, epigenomic analysis, and functional assays, we studied the alterations to the liver macrophage compartment during and after the resolution of infection. Results: We show that the infection alters the composition of liver-resident macrophages, leading to the infiltration of monocytes that differentiate into various infection-associated macrophage populations with divergent transcriptomic profiles. Whereas infection-associated macrophages disappear post-resolution of infection, monocyte-derived macrophages assuming the Kupffer cell (KC)-like profile engraft in the liver and co-existed with embryonic KCs in the long-term. Remarkably, the prior exposure to infection imprinted a specific transcriptional program on post-resolution KCs that was independent of cell ontogeny. This reprogramming of KCs was driven by an epigenetic remodeling of KC chromatin landscapes and associated with altered KC function and was associated with increased resiliance to subsequent bacterial infection. Conclusion: Our study demonstrates that prior exposure to a parasitic infection can reshape the identity and function of the liver macrophage pool in the long-term.
2024-08-12 | GSE266225 | GEO
Project description:Exposure to maternal western-style diet (mWD) is associated with early development of metabolic dysfunction-associated fatty liver disease (MAFLD) in offspring. Kupffer cells (KCs), the main resident macrophage population in the liver, are known to promote MAFLD progression, however, the effects of mWD on KC subtypes, ontogeny, and gene expression in offspring are not fully understood. In this manuscript, we used two different models of mWD exposure and challenge in adulthood to understand the impact of mWD on KC proportion, ontogeny, and gene expression in adult offspring. Our data indicate that in the absence of challenge in adulthood, mWD results in increased KC proportion in offspring, with limited changes in KC ontogeny or liver phenotype. In contrast, mWD mice challenged with WD in adulthood had increased expression of inflammatory (Nlrp3) and fibrosis (Tgfb1) related genes compared to chow (CH)-WD fed mice. Although KC proportion and ontogeny were similar when comparing CH-WD and WD-WD fed mice, we found that WD-WD mice had a greater reduction in KC proportion and TdT labelling than CH-WD fed mice when normalized to their respective maternal diet controls. Similar results were found when mice were weaned onto normal chow and re-challenged with WD later on in adulthood. Bulk RNA sequencing data indicate that KCs from mWD mice re-challenged with WD in adulthood had increased expression of inflammatory and antigen presenting genes compared to KCs isolated from WD fed mice lacking mWD exposure. These findings highlight the intergenerational repercussions of mWD on liver phenotype as well as KC proportion and ontogeny and provide novel insight into the mechanisms dictating MAFLD.
2025-12-05 | GSE312316 | GEO
Project description:Kupffer cells (KCs) are tissue-resident macrophages which colonize the liver early during embryogenesis. KCs start to acquire a tissue-specific transcriptional signature immediately after colonizing the liver, mature together with the tissue, and adapt to the tissue’s functions. Throughout development and adulthood, KCs have distinct core functions that are essential for liver and organismal homeostasis, such as supporting fetal erythropoiesis as well as postnatal erythrocyte recycling and liver metabolism. However, whether perturbations of macrophage core functions during development contribute to or cause disease at postnatal stages is poorly understood. Here, we utilize a mouse model of maternal obesity to perturb KC functions during gestation. We show that offspring exposed to maternal obesity develop fatty liver disease, driven by aberrant developmental programming of KCs that persists into adulthood. Programmed KCs mediate lipid uptake by hepatocytes through apolipoprotein secretion. KC depletion in neonates born to obese mothers, followed by replenishment with exogenous monocytes, rescues the fatty liver disease. The transcriptional programming of KCs and the fatty liver disease phenotype are also rescued by genetic depletion of hypoxia-inducible factor alpha (Hif1a) in macrophages during gestation. These results establish developmental perturbation of KC functions as a cause for the development of fatty liver disease in adult life and, thereby, place fetal-derived macrophages as intergenerational messengers within the concept of developmental origins of health and diseases.
2024-12-04 | GSE283082 | GEO
Project description:Proinflammatory activation of hepatic macrophages plays a key role in the development of nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH). This involves increased embryonic hepatic Kupffer cell (KC) death, facilitating the placement of KCs with bone marrow-derived recruited hepatic macrophages (RHMs) that highly express proinflammatory genes. Moreover, phago/efferocytic activity of KCs is diminished in NASH, enhancing liver inflammation. However, the molecular mechanisms underlying these changes in KCs are not known. Here, we show that HIF-2a mediates NASH-associated decreased KC growth and efferocytosis by enhancing lysosomal stress. At the molecular level, HIF-2a stimulated mTOR and ERK-dependent inhibitory TFEB phosphorylation, leading to decreased lysosomal and phagocytic gene expression. With increased metabolic stress and phago/efferocytic burden in NASH, these changes were sufficient to increase lysosomal stress, causing decreased efferocytosis and lysosomal cell death. Of interest, HIF-2a-dependent TFEB regulation only occurred in KCs, but not in RHMs. Instead, in RHMs, HIF-2a promoted mtROS production and proinflammatory activation by increasing ANT2 expression and mitochondrial permeability transition. Taken together, our results suggest that macrophage subtype-specific effects of HIF-2a collectively contributes to the proinflammatory activation of liver macrophages, leading to the development of NASH.
2025-05-06 | PXD040457 | Pride
Project description:There is an evident, unmet need to develop a commercially available in vitro system that can model inflammatory states of the liver and predict immune-mediated hepatotoxicity of drugs and xenobiotics taken under inflamed conditions. Hepatocyte-Kupffer cell co-cultures can model inflammation-mediated hepatotoxicity; however, Kupffer cell (KC) source remains an important bottleneck for the development of such models. Primary human Kupffer cells (PHKCs) are costly, limited in availability and exhibit donor variability. An alternative cell source for KCs has not been reported. Important paradigm shift from the classical dogma of adult blood-circulating monocyte-derived macrophages to intrahepatic precursor/fetal monocyte-derived macrophages has shed new light into the origin of KCs in vivo. Based on these recent findings, we report here, a novel method to generate human KCs in vitro from stem cells (hPSC-KCs) via fetal monocytes. hPSC-KCs expressed macrophage markers, CD11, CD14, CD68, CD163 and CD32 at gene and protein level and exhibited functional properties such as phagocytosis and Interleukin-6 and Tumor Necrosis Factor-4alpha production upon activation. Importantly, molecular signature, liver-macrophage specific CLEC-4F expression and cytokines production levels of hPSC-KCs were similar to PHKCs but different from non-liver macrophages. We used an inflammatory liver co-culture model to demonstrate that activated hPSC-KCs, but not non-liver macrophages, were able to recapitulate effects of PHKCs when stimulated with paradigm hepatotoxicants. hPSC-KCs developed in this study offer a renewable human cell source for liver-specific macrophages which can be used to develop in vitro systems for modelling the inflammatory state of the liver. Gene expression profiles of 9 samples were determined using Human Gene 2.0 ST Array. These 9 samples included three replicates each of PHKCs (primary human Kupffer cells), human pluripotent stem cell-dervied Kupffer cells (hPSC-KCs) and non-liver macrophages (NL-Mφ).
2019-01-07 | GSE99734 | GEO