Research and Development, Salem Veteran Affairs Medical Center, Salem, VA, USA.
Davis Heart and Lung Research Institute, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, USA.
Methods Mol Biol. 2021;2193:111-120. doi: 10.1007/978-1-0716-0845-6_11.
The immune system depends on two major paths-the innate and the adaptive immunity. Macrophage, with its unique features as the first line of immune defense to engulf and digest invaders, serves as the key effector cells integrating those two paths. The dynamic plasticity of macrophage activation during wound repair, inflammation resolution, and tissue remodeling are emerging biomedical and bioengineering hot topics in immune function studies such as the various secretions of cytokines and chemokines and the signaling pathways with ligands and their cognate receptors. Better knowledge on how physical/mechanical and multicellular microenvironment on the modulation of macrophage functions will create innovative therapies to boost host defense mechanism and assist wound healing. In this, we describe an easy method to measure functions (gene expressions) of human and mouse macrophages in response to mechanical microenvironment changes by embedding isolated macrophages in polymerized hyaluronan gel with different wound matrix stiffness.
免疫系统依赖于两条主要途径——先天免疫和适应性免疫。巨噬细胞作为免疫防御的第一道防线，具有吞噬和消化入侵物的独特功能，是整合这两条途径的关键效应细胞。在伤口修复、炎症消退和组织重塑过程中，巨噬细胞的激活具有动态的可塑性，这是免疫功能研究中的一个新兴的生物医学和生物工程热点，例如细胞因子和趋化因子的各种分泌以及配体及其同源受体的信号通路。更好地了解物理/力学和多细胞微环境对巨噬细胞功能的调节，将创造创新的治疗方法来增强宿主防御机制和辅助伤口愈合。在本文中，我们描述了一种通过将分离的巨噬细胞嵌入具有不同伤口基质刚度的聚合透明质酸凝胶中来测量（基因表达）人类和小鼠巨噬细胞对机械微环境变化反应的简单方法。
