Project description:Innate lymphoid cells (ILCs) have emerged as essential players in the skin-associated immune system in health and inflammatory skin diseases. Their low numbers and lack of specific markers hampered extensive characterization and consequently resulted in limited knowledge of their protein expression. Here, we combined flow cytometry and state-of-the-art proteomics to comprehensively describe the proteins constitutively expressed by ILC2 and ILC3 subsets derived from healthy human skin and peripheral blood. We quantified 6666 proteins from skin ILC and identified 608 differentially expressed proteins in the investigated subsets. In addition to the current analyses, highlighting new functions of ILC, the ILC proteomic libraries and the proteomes of the ILC2 and ILC3 subsets will serve as valuable resources for future analyses of ILC function and are available at http://skin.science.
Project description:Group 3 innate lymphoid cells (ILC3) are innate immune effectors that contribute to host defense. Whether ILC3 functions are stably modified following pathogen encounter is unknown. Here we assess the impact of a time-restricted enterobacterial challenge to long-term ILC3 activation. We found that intestinal ILC3 persist for months in an activated state following exposure to Citrobacter rodentium. Upon rechallenge, these “trained” ILC3 proliferate, display enhanced interleukin (IL)-22 responses, and have a superior cell-intrinsic capacity to control infection compared to naïve ILC3. Metabolic changes occur in C. rodentium-exposed ILC3 but only trained ILC3 have enhanced proliferative capacity that contributes to elevated IL-22 production. Accordingly, a limited encounter with a pathogen can promote durable phenotypic and functional changes in intestinal ILC3 that contribute to long-term mucosal defense.
Project description:Small intestinal group 3 innate lymphoid cells (ILC3) from ILC3-conditional BMAL1 knock out mice or littermate control mice were sort-purified for transcriptional analysis
Project description:Group 3 innate lymphoid cells (ILC3) are major regulators of inflammation, infection, microbiota composition and metabolism. ILC3 and neuronal cells were shown to interact at discrete mucosal locations to steer mucosal defence. Nevertheless, whether neuroimmune circuits operate at an organismal level, integrating extrinsic environmental signals to orchestrate ILC3 responses remains elusive. Here we show that light-entrained and brain-tuned circadian circuits regulate enteric ILC3, intestinal homeostasis and the host lipid metabolism. We found that enteric ILC3 display circadian expression of clock genes and ILC3-related transcription factors. ILC3-autonomous ablation of the circadian regulator Arntl led to disrupted gut ILC3 homeostasis, impaired epithelial reactivity, deregulated microbiome, increased susceptibility to bowel infection and disrupted lipid metabolism. Loss of ILC3-intrinsic Arntl shaped the gut postcode receptors of ILC3. Strikingly, light-dark cycles, feeding rhythms and microbial cues differentially regulated ILC3 clocks, with light signals as major entraining cues of ILC3. Accordingly, surgical- and genetically-induced deregulation of brain rhythmicity led to disrupted circadian ILC3 oscillations, deregulated microbiome and altered lipid metabolism. Our work reveals a circadian circuitry that translates environmental light cues into enteric ILC3, shaping intestinal health and organismal homeostasis.
Project description:Innate lymphoid cells (ILCs) are tissue-resident lymphocytes that lack antigen-specific receptors and exhibit innate effector functions such as cytokine production that play an important role in immediate responses to pathogens especially at mucosal sites. Mouse and human ILC subsets have been extensively characterized in various tissues and in blood. In this study, we present the first characterization of ILCs and ILC subsets in rat gut and secondary lymphoid organs. ScRNAseq and flow cytometric data shows that phenotype and function of rat ILC subsets are conserved similar to human and mouse ILCs. However, contrary to human and mouse, our study unexpectedly revealed that ILC2 and not ILC3 was by far the dominant ILC subset in the rat intestinal lamina propria. ILC2 predominance in the gut was independent of rat strain, sex or housing facility. In contrast, ILC3 were the main ILC subset in mesenteric lymph nodes and Peyer patches, in which strain-dependent differences in ILC frequencies were also observed. In conclusion, our study demonstrates that in spite of highly conserved phenotype and function between mice, rat and humans, the distribution of ILC subsets in the intestinal mucosa is species-dependent, likely in response to both genetic and environmental factors.
Project description:ILC3 contain 3 well-defined subsets, CCR6+ ILC3, NKp46+ ILC3, and CCR6–NKp46– DN ILC3. These subsets had not previously been transcriptionally compared and the extent to which they had shared or unique transcriptional profiles remained unclear. We used microarray to determine transcriptional differences between these 3 subsets and to find putative factors that support the survival of CCR6+ ILC3 during cytokine depletion.
Project description:Type-3 innate lymphoid cells (ILC3) regulate homeostasis and orchestrate immunity in the intestine, mediated in part by their bi-directional communication with the intestinal epithelium. In order to define specific interactions between these two compartments, we used a reductionist co-culture system of murine epithelial small intestinal organoids (SIO) with ILC3. The transcriptomic profile of epithelial cells from these co-cultures was analysed by bulk RNAseq.