The Roslin Institute and Royal (Dick) School of Veterinary Studies, University of Edinburgh, Scotland, United Kingdom.
J Leukoc Biol. 2012 Sep;92(3):433-44. doi: 10.1189/jlb.0312166. Epub 2012 Jul 5.
Monocytes and macrophages differentiate from progenitor cells under the influence of colony-stimulating factors. Genome-scale data have enabled the identification of the set of genes that distinguishes macrophages from other cell types and the ways in which thousands of genes are regulated in response to pathogen challenge. Although there has been a focus on a small subset of lineage-enriched transcription factors, such as PU.1, more than one-half of the transcription factors in the genome can be expressed in macrophage lineage cells under some state of activation, and they interact in a complex network. The network architecture is conserved across species, but many of the target genes evolve rapidly and differ between mouse and human. The data and publication deluge related to macrophage biology require the development of new analytical tools and ways of presenting information in an accessible form.
单核细胞和巨噬细胞在集落刺激因子的影响下从祖细胞中分化而来。基因组规模的数据使我们能够识别出将巨噬细胞与其他细胞类型区分开来的基因集，以及数千个基因在应对病原体挑战时的调控方式。尽管人们一直关注一小部分谱系特异性转录因子，如 PU.1，但在某种激活状态下，基因组中超过一半的转录因子可以在巨噬细胞谱系细胞中表达，并且它们相互作用形成一个复杂的网络。该网络架构在物种间是保守的，但许多靶基因在进化上迅速变化，并且在小鼠和人类之间存在差异。与巨噬细胞生物学相关的数据和出版物如潮水般涌现，这需要开发新的分析工具和以易于访问的形式呈现信息的方法。
