Partner: Alexander Bennett


Recent publications
1.Bagnall J., Boddington C., England H., Brignall R., Downton P., Alsoufi Z., Boyd J., Rowe W., Bennett A., Walker C., Adamson A., Patel Nisha M. X., O’Cualain R., Schmidt L., Spiller David G., Jackson Dean A., Müller W., Muldoon M., White Michael R. H.R., Paszek P., Quantitative analysis of competitive cytokine signaling predicts tissue thresholds for the propagation of macrophage activation, Science Signaling, ISSN: 1945-0877, DOI: 10.1126/scisignal.aaf3998, Vol.11, No.540, pp.1-15, 2018
Abstract:

Toll-like receptor (TLR) signaling regulates macrophage activation and effector cytokine propagation in the constrained environment of a tissue. In macrophage populations, TLR4 stimulates the dose-dependent transcription of nuclear factor κB (NF-κB) target genes. However, using single-RNA counting, we found that individual cells exhibited a wide range (three orders of magnitude) of expression of the gene encoding the proinflammatory cytokine tumor necrosis factor–α (TNF-α). The TLR4-induced TNFA transcriptional response correlated with the extent of NF-κB signaling in the cells and their size. We compared the rates of TNF-α production and uptake in macrophages and mouse embryonic fibroblasts and generated a mathematical model to explore the heterogeneity in the response of macrophages to TLR4 stimulation and the propagation of the TNF-α signal in the tissue. The model predicts that the local propagation of the TLR4-dependent TNF-α response and cellular NF-κB signaling are limited to small distances of a few cell diameters between neighboring tissue-resident macrophages. In our predictive model, TNF-α propagation was constrained by competitive uptake of TNF-α from the environment, rather than by heterogeneous production of the cytokine. We propose that the highly constrained architecture of tissues enables effective localized propagation of inflammatory cues while avoiding out-of-context responses at longer distances.

Affiliations:
Bagnall J.-other affiliation
Boddington C.-other affiliation
England H.-other affiliation
Brignall R.-other affiliation
Downton P.-other affiliation
Alsoufi Z.-other affiliation
Boyd J.-other affiliation
Rowe W.-other affiliation
Bennett A.-other affiliation
Walker C.-other affiliation
Adamson A.-other affiliation
Patel Nisha M. X.-other affiliation
O’Cualain R.-other affiliation
Schmidt L.-other affiliation
Spiller David G.-other affiliation
Jackson Dean A.-other affiliation
Müller W.-other affiliation
Muldoon M.-other affiliation
White Michael R. H.R.-University of Manchester (GB)
Paszek P.-other affiliation