Prenatal inflammation remodels lung immunity and function by programming ILC2 hyperactivation.

Here, we examine how prenatal inflammation shapes tissue function and immunity in the lung by reprogramming tissue-resident immune cells from early development. Maternal, but not fetal, type I interferon-mediated inflammation provokes expansion and hyperactivation of group 2 innate lymphoid cells (ILC2s) seeding the developing lung. Hyperactivated ILC2s produce increased IL-5 and IL-13 and are associated with acute Th2 bias, decreased Tregs, and persistent lung eosinophilia into adulthood. ILC2 hyperactivation is recapitulated by adoptive transfer of fetal liver precursors following prenatal inflammation, indicative of developmental programming at the fetal progenitor level. Reprogrammed ILC2 hyperactivation and subsequent lung immune remodeling, including persistent eosinophilia, is concomitant with worsened histopathology and increased airway dysfunction equivalent to papain exposure, indicating increased asthma susceptibility in offspring. Our data elucidate a mechanism by which early-life inflammation results in increased asthma susceptibility in the presence of hyperactivated ILC2s that drive persistent changes to lung immunity during perinatal development.

An age-progressive platelet differentiation path from hematopoietic stem cells causes exacerbated thrombosis.

Platelet dysregulation is drastically increased with advanced age and contributes to making cardiovascular disorders the leading cause of death of elderly humans. Here, we reveal a direct differentiation pathway from hematopoietic stem cells into platelets that is progressively propagated upon aging. Remarkably, the aging-enriched platelet path is decoupled from all other hematopoietic lineages, including erythropoiesis, and operates as an additional layer in parallel with canonical platelet production. This results in two molecularly and functionally distinct populations of megakaryocyte progenitors. The age-induced megakaryocyte progenitors have a profoundly enhanced capacity to engraft, expand, restore, and reconstitute platelets in situ and upon transplantation and produce an additional platelet population in old mice. The two pools of co-existing platelets cause age-related thrombocytosis and dramatically increased thrombosis in vivo. Strikingly, aging-enriched platelets are functionally hyper-reactive compared with the canonical platelet populations. These findings reveal stem cell-based aging as a mechanism for platelet dysregulation and age-induced thrombosis.

Prenatal inflammation reprograms hyperactive ILC2s that promote allergic lung inflammation and airway dysfunction.

Allergic asthma is a chronic respiratory disease that initiates in early life, but causal mechanisms are poorly understood. Here we examined how prenatal inflammation shapes allergic asthma susceptibility by reprogramming lung immunity from early development. Induction of Type I interferon-mediated inflammation during development provoked expansion and hyperactivation of group 2 innate lymphoid cells (ILC2s) seeding the developing lung. Hyperactivated ILC2s produced increased IL-5 and IL-13, and were associated with acute Th2 bias, eosinophilia, and decreased Tregs in the lung. The hyperactive ILC2 phenotype was recapitulated by adoptive transfer of a fetal liver precursor following exposure to prenatal inflammation, indicative of developmental programming. Programming of ILC2 function and subsequent lung immune remodeling by prenatal inflammation led to airway dysfunction at baseline and in response to papain, indicating increased asthma susceptibility. Our data provide a link by which developmental programming of progenitors by early-life inflammation drives lung immune remodeling and asthma susceptibility through hyperactivation of lung-resident ILC2s. One Sentence Summary: Prenatal inflammation programs asthma susceptibility by inducing the production of hyperactivated ILC2s in the developing lung.

Both maternal IFNγ exposure and acute prenatal infection with Toxoplasma gondii activate fetal hematopoietic stem cells.

Infection directly influences adult hematopoietic stem cell (HSC) function and differentiation, but the fetal hematopoietic response to infection during pregnancy is not well-studied. Here, we investigated the fetal hematopoietic response to maternal infection with Toxoplasma gondii (T. gondii), an intracellular parasite that elicits Type II IFNγ-mediated maternal immunity. While it is known that maternal infection without direct pathogen transmission can affect fetal immune development, the effects of maternal IFNγ on developing HSCs and the signals that mediate these interactions have not been investigated. Our investigation reveals that the fetal HSCs respond to T. gondii infection with virulence-dependent changes in proliferation, self-renewal potential, and lineage output. Furthermore, maternal IFNγ crosses the fetal-maternal interface, where it is perceived by fetal HSCs. By comparing the effects of maternal IFNγ injection with maternal T. gondii infection, we reveal that the effects of IFNγ treatment mimic some aspects of the fetal HSC response to infection. Moreover, our findings illuminate that the fetal HSC response to prenatal infection is distinct from the adult HSC response to IFNγ-induced inflammation. Altogether, our data disentangle the role of infection-induced inflammatory cytokines in driving the expansion of downstream hematopoietic progenitors.

The impact of prenatal inflammation on hematopoietic development.

PURPOSE OF REVIEW: Inflammation is now recognized as a major regulator of hematopoietic stem cell (HSC) function. Adult hematopoietic stem cells can adaptively modulate hematopoietic output in direct response to acute infection and inflammation. Conversely, prolonged exposure to inflammation can drive impaired HSC function, clonal expansion, and malignant transformation. As compared with adult hematopoiesis, the effects of prenatal inflammation on developing hematopoietic stem cells are understudied. RECENT FINDINGS: Inflammatory cues directly activate adult HSCs in the bone marrow, but the response of fetal HSCs to maternal inflammation is underexplored. Recent evidence demonstrates that maternal inflammation can be detected by fetal hematopoietic stem and progenitor cells (HSPCs) within the fetal liver and that the same inflammatory cues evoke fundamentally distinct responses during development. The responses of developing stem and progenitor cells and the specialized immune cells they produce have important implications for postnatal hematopoietic output and immune function. SUMMARY: We discuss recent insights into the response of fetal hematopoiesis to prenatal inflammation and examine how recent discoveries regarding the contribution of fetal hematopoiesis to the adult hematopoietic system will influence future studies.

B-1 plasma cells require non-cognate CD4 T cell help to generate a unique repertoire of natural IgM.

Evolutionarily conserved, "natural" (n)IgM is broadly reactive to both self and foreign antigens. Its selective deficiency leads to increases in autoimmune diseases and infections. In mice, nIgM is secreted independent of microbial exposure to bone marrow (BM) and spleen B-1 cell-derived plasma cells (B-1PC), generating the majority of nIgM, or by B-1 cells that remain non-terminally differentiated (B-1sec). Thus, it has been assumed that the nIgM repertoire is broadly reflective of the repertoire of body cavity B-1 cells. Studies here reveal, however, that B-1PC generate a distinct, oligoclonal nIgM repertoire, characterized by short CDR3 variable immunoglobulin heavy chain regions, 7-8 amino acids in length, some public, many arising from convergent rearrangements, while specificities previously associated with nIgM were generated by a population of IgM-secreting B-1 (B-1sec). BM, but not spleen B-1PC, or B-1sec also required the presence of TCRαß CD4 T cells for their development from fetal precursors. Together, the studies identify important previously unknown characteristics of the nIgM pool.

Isolation and Characterization of Fetal Liver Hematopoietic Stem Cells.

Hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) are responsible for the generation and maintenance of pools of multipotent precursors that ultimately give rise to all fully differentiated blood and immune cells. Proper identification and isolation of HSCs for functional analysis has greatly facilitated our understanding of both normal and abnormal adult hematopoiesis. Whereas adult hematopoiesis in mice and humans is driven by quiescent HSCs that reside almost exclusively within the bone marrow (BM), developmental hematopoiesis is characterized by a series of transient progenitors driving waves of increasingly mature hematopoietic cell production that occur across multiple anatomical sites. These waves of hematopoietic cell production are also responsible for the generation of distinct immune cell populations during development that persist into adulthood and contribute uniquely to adult immunity. Therefore, methods to properly isolate and characterize fetal progenitors with high purity across development become increasingly important not only for defining developmental hematopoietic pathways, but also for understanding the contribution of developmental hematopoiesis to the immune system. Here, we describe and discuss methods and considerations for the isolation and characterization of HSCs from the fetal liver, the primary hematopoietic organ during fetal development.

Prenatal inflammation perturbs murine fetal hematopoietic development and causes persistent changes to postnatal immunity.

Adult hematopoietic stem and progenitor cells (HSPCs) respond directly to inflammation and infection, causing both acute and persistent changes to quiescence, mobilization, and differentiation. Here we show that murine fetal HSPCs respond to prenatal inflammation in utero and that the fetal response shapes postnatal hematopoiesis and immune cell function. Heterogeneous fetal HSPCs show divergent responses to maternal immune activation (MIA), including changes in quiescence, expansion, and lineage-biased output. Single-cell transcriptomic analysis of fetal HSPCs in response to MIA reveals specific upregulation of inflammatory gene profiles in discrete, transient hematopoietic stem cell (HSC) populations that propagate expansion of lymphoid-biased progenitors. Beyond fetal development, MIA causes the inappropriate expansion and persistence of fetal lymphoid-biased progenitors postnatally, concomitant with increased cellularity and hyperresponsiveness of fetal-derived innate-like lymphocytes. Our investigation demonstrates how inflammation in utero can direct the output and function of fetal-derived immune cells by reshaping fetal HSC establishment.

Aortic intimal resident macrophages are essential for maintenance of the non-thrombogenic intravascular state.

Leukocytes and endothelial cells frequently cooperate to resolve inflammatory events. In most cases, these interactions are transient in nature and triggered by immunological insults. Here, we report that in areas of disturbed blood flow, aortic endothelial cells permanently and intimately associate with a population of specialized macrophages that are recruited at birth from the closing ductus arteriosus and share the luminal surface with the endothelium becoming interwoven in the tunica intima. Anatomical changes that affect hemodynamics, like in patent ductus arteriosus, alter macrophage seeding to coincide with regions of disturbed flow. Aortic resident macrophages expand in situ via direct cell renewal. Induced-depletion of intimal macrophages led to thrombin-mediated endothelial cell contraction, progressive fibrin accumulation and formation of microthrombi that, once dislodged, caused blockade of vessels in several organs. Together the findings revealed that intravascular resident macrophages are essential to regulate thrombin activity and clear fibrin deposits in regions of disturbed blood flow.

IL7Rα, but not Flk2, is required for hematopoietic stem cell reconstitution of tissue-resident lymphoid cells.

Tissue-resident lymphoid cells (TLCs) span the spectrum of innate-to-adaptive immune function. Unlike traditional, circulating lymphocytes that are continuously generated from hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs), many TLCs are of fetal origin and poorly generated from adult HSCs. Here, we sought to further understand murine TLC development and the roles of Flk2 and IL7Rα, two cytokine receptors with known function in traditional lymphopoiesis. Using Flk2- and Il7r-Cre lineage tracing, we found that peritoneal B1a cells, splenic marginal zone B (MZB) cells, lung ILC2s and regulatory T cells (Tregs) were highly labeled. Despite high labeling, loss of Flk2 minimally affected the generation of these cells. In contrast, loss of IL7Rα, or combined deletion of Flk2 and IL7Rα, dramatically reduced the number of B1a cells, MZBs, ILC2s and Tregs, both in situ and upon transplantation, indicating an intrinsic and essential role for IL7Rα. Surprisingly, reciprocal transplants of wild-type HSCs showed that an IL7Rα-/- environment selectively impaired reconstitution of TLCs when compared with TLC numbers in situ. Taken together, our data defined Flk2- and IL7Rα-positive TLC differentiation paths, and revealed functional roles of Flk2 and IL7Rα in TLC establishment.

Early Life Inflammation and the Developing Hematopoietic and Immune Systems: The Cochlea as a Sensitive Indicator of Disruption.

Emerging evidence indicates that perinatal infection and inflammation can influence the developing immune system and may ultimately affect long-term health and disease outcomes in offspring by perturbing tissue and immune homeostasis. We posit that perinatal inflammation influences immune outcomes in offspring by perturbing (1) the development and function of fetal-derived immune cells that regulate tissue development and homeostasis, and (2) the establishment and function of developing hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) that continually generate immune cells across the lifespan. To disentangle the complexities of these interlinked systems, we propose the cochlea as an ideal model tissue to investigate how perinatal infection affects immune, tissue, and stem cell development. The cochlea contains complex tissue architecture and a rich immune milieu that is established during early life. A wide range of congenital infections cause cochlea dysfunction and sensorineural hearing loss (SNHL), likely attributable to early life inflammation. Furthermore, we show that both immune cells and bone marrow hematopoietic progenitors can be simultaneously analyzed within neonatal cochlear samples. Future work investigating the pathogenesis of SNHL in the context of congenital infection will therefore provide critical information on how perinatal inflammation drives disease susceptibility in offspring.

Takes one to B1a: Dismantling the origin of mantle cell lymphoma.

Therapeutic discovery for mantle cell lymphoma (MCL) has been hindered by a lack of preclinical mouse models that recapitulate human disease. In this issue, Pieters and colleagues (2021. J. Exp. Med.https://doi.org/10.1084/jem.20202280) establish a novel mouse model of MCL driven by overexpression of cyclin D2 and identify fetal-derived B1a cells as putative cell of origin for MCL.

A "Switch" in Time through Genes Aligned: Unraveling the Genomic Landscape of HSC Development.

Seeking to define the "switch" from fetal to adult hematopoiesis, Li et al. (2020) performed extensive genomic and epigenomic profiling of hematopoietic stem and progenitor cells across ontogeny (as explored in this issue of Cell Stem Cell). Gradual and stochastic changes in genomic and epigenomic regulation suggest the absence of any specific regulator.

Training the Fetal Immune System Through Maternal Inflammation-A Layered Hygiene Hypothesis.

Over the last century, the alarming surge in allergy and autoimmune disease has led to the hypothesis that decreasing exposure to microbes, which has accompanied industrialization and modern life in the Western world, has fundamentally altered the immune response. In its current iteration, the "hygiene hypothesis" suggests that reduced microbial exposures during early life restricts the production and differentiation of immune cells suited for immune regulation. Although it is now well-appreciated that the increase in hypersensitivity disorders represents a "perfect storm" of many contributing factors, we argue here that two important considerations have rarely been explored. First, the window of microbial exposure that impacts immune development is not limited to early childhood, but likely extends into the womb. Second, restricted microbial interactions by an expectant mother will bias the fetal immune system toward hypersensitivity. Here, we extend this discussion to hypothesize that the cell types sensing microbial exposures include fetal hematopoietic stem cells, which drive long-lasting changes to immunity.

The lymphoid-associated interleukin 7 receptor (IL7R) regulates tissue-resident macrophage development.

The discovery of a fetal origin for tissue-resident macrophages (trMacs) has inspired an intense search for the mechanisms underlying their development. Here, we performed in vivo lineage tracing of cells with an expression history of IL7Rα, a marker exclusively associated with the lymphoid lineage in adult hematopoiesis. Surprisingly, we found that Il7r-Cre labeled fetal-derived, adult trMacs. Labeling was almost complete in some tissues and partial in others. The putative progenitors of trMacs, yolk sac (YS) erythromyeloid progenitors, did not express IL7R, and YS hematopoiesis was unperturbed in IL7R-deficient mice. In contrast, tracking of IL7Rα message levels, surface expression, and Il7r-Cre-mediated labeling across fetal development revealed dynamic regulation of Il7r mRNA expression and rapid upregulation of IL7Rα surface protein upon transition from monocyte to macrophage within fetal tissues. Fetal monocyte differentiation in vitro produced IL7R+ macrophages, supporting a direct progenitor-progeny relationship. Additionally, blockade of IL7R function during late gestation specifically impaired the establishment of fetal-derived trMacs in vivo These data provide evidence for a distinct function of IL7Rα in fetal myelopoiesis and identify IL7R as a novel regulator of trMac development.

Clonal and Quantitative In Vivo Assessment of Hematopoietic Stem Cell Differentiation Reveals Strong Erythroid Potential of Multipotent Cells.

Hematopoiesis is arguably one of the best understood stem cell systems; however, significant challenges remain to reach a consensus understanding of the lineage potential, heterogeneity, and relationships of hematopoietic stem and progenitor cell populations. To gain new insights, we performed quantitative analyses of mature cell production from hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) and multiple hematopoietic progenitor populations. Assessment of the absolute numbers of mature cell types produced by each progenitor cell revealed a striking erythroid dominance of all myeloid-competent progenitors assessed, accompanied by strong platelet reconstitution. All populations with myeloid potential also produced robust numbers of red blood cells and platelets in vivo. Clonal analysis by single-cell transplantation and by spleen colony assays revealed that a significant fraction of HSCs and multipotent progenitors have multilineage potential at the single-cell level. These new insights prompt an erythroid-focused model of hematopoietic differentiation.

CD8 Follicular T Cells Promote B Cell Antibody Class Switch in Autoimmune Disease.

CD8 T cells can play both a protective and pathogenic role in inflammation and autoimmune development. Recent studies have highlighted the ability of CD8 T cells to function as T follicular helper (Tfh) cells in the germinal center in the context of infection. However, whether this phenomenon occurs in autoimmunity and contributes to autoimmune pathogenesis is largely unexplored. In this study, we show that CD8 T cells acquire a CD4 Tfh profile in the absence of functional regulatory T cells in both the IL-2-deficient and scurfy mouse models. Depletion of CD8 T cells mitigates autoimmune pathogenesis in IL-2-deficient mice. CD8 T cells express the B cell follicle-localizing chemokine receptor CXCR5, a principal Tfh transcription factor Bcl6, and the Tfh effector cytokine IL-21. CD8 T cells localize to the B cell follicle, express B cell costimulatory proteins, and promote B cell differentiation and Ab isotype class switching. These data reveal a novel contribution of autoreactive CD8 T cells to autoimmune disease, in part, through CD4 follicular-like differentiation and functionality.

Tn5Prime, a Tn5 based 5' capture method for single cell RNA-seq.

RNA-sequencing (RNA-seq) is a powerful technique to investigate and quantify entire transcriptomes. Recent advances in the field have made it possible to explore the transcriptomes of single cells. However, most widely used RNA-seq protocols fail to provide crucial information regarding transcription start sites. Here we present a protocol, Tn5Prime, that takes advantage of the Tn5 transposase-based Smart-seq2 protocol to create RNA-seq libraries that capture the 5' end of transcripts. The Tn5Prime method dramatically streamlines the 5' capture process and is both cost effective and reliable. By applying Tn5Prime to bulk RNA and single cell samples, we were able to define transcription start sites as well as quantify transcriptomes at high accuracy and reproducibility. Additionally, similar to 3' end-based high-throughput methods like Drop-seq and 10× Genomics Chromium, the 5' capture Tn5Prime method allows the introduction of cellular identifiers during reverse transcription, simplifying the analysis of large numbers of single cells. In contrast to 3' end-based methods, Tn5Prime also enables the assembly of the variable 5' ends of the antibody sequences present in single B-cell data. Therefore, Tn5Prime presents a robust tool for both basic and applied research into the adaptive immune system and beyond.

Reversing Time: Ezh1 Deficiency Hastens Definitive Hematopoiesis.

The inability to derive multipotent hematopoietic stem cells in vitro stems in part from a limited understanding of how multipotency is acquired during development. Recently in Nature,Vo et al. (2018) reveal the epigenetic enzyme Ezh1 as a master regulator of multipotency during hematopoietic stem cell development.