Project description:Human liver myeloid cells are imperfectly defined, but it is broadly agreed that cells of stellate appearance in situ, expressing the markers CD11b and CD68, are the liver’s resident macrophages, termed Kupffer cells. Recent investigations using single cell RNA sequencing and unsupervised clustering algorithms suggest there are two populations of cells with the characteristics of tissue macrophages in human liver. We therefore analyzed dissociated human liver tissue using the markers CD11b and CD68 to define Kupffer cells and found within this population two subsets that differ in their expression of multiple surface markers. These subsets were FACS-sorted based on CD32 expression, and gene expression analysis identified them with human liver myeloid cell subsets defined by two independent single cell RNA sequencing studies. These two subsets differed in the expression of genes associated with T cell activation and immunosuppression, suggesting distinct roles in T cell tolerance.
Project description:Human liver myeloid cells are imperfectly defined, but it is broadly agreed that cells of stellate appearance in situ, expressing the markers CD11b and CD68, are the liver's resident macrophages, classically termed Kupffer cells. Recent investigations using single cell RNA sequencing and unsupervised clustering algorithms suggest there are two populations of cells with the characteristics of tissue macrophages in human liver. We therefore analyzed dissociated human liver tissue using the markers CD11b and CD68 to define macrophage-like cells and found within this population two subsets that differ in their expression of multiple surface markers. These subsets were FACS-sorted based on CD32 expression, and gene expression analysis identified them with human liver myeloid cell subsets that were previously defined by two independent single cell RNA sequencing studies. Using qRT-PCR we found that the two subsets differed in the expression of genes associated with T cell activation and immunosuppression, suggesting distinct roles in T cell tolerance. In addition, one subset expressed two markers, CD1C and CD11c, more often seen on classical dendritic cells. Criteria used to distinguish macrophages from dendritic cells in other tissues may need to be revised in the human liver.
Project description:During embryonic development, blood cells emerge from a subset of specialized endothelial cells, named hemogenic endothelial cells (HECs), via a process known as endothelial-to-hematopoietic transition (EHT). A thorough characterization of HECs and their EHT is essential to guide the efforts to derive this population from human pluripotent stem cells (hPSCs), a critical step to generate therapeutic blood products in vitro. However, current known markers used to isolate HECs are insufficient as they also enrich for arterial endothelial cells that are associated with HECs. To identify specific human HEC markers, we performed transcriptomic analysis of 28-32-day human embryos, a developmental stage characterized by active EHT. We observed that the expression of FCGR2B, encoding for the Fc receptor CD32 previously associated with other specialized endothelia, is highly enriched in the ACE+CD34+ endothelial cell population that contains HECs. Functional ex vivo analyses confirmed that multilineage hematopoietic potential is highly enriched in CD32+ endothelial cells isolated from the aorta-gonad-mesonephros region and yolk sac of human embryos. In addition, CD32 emerged as selective marker for hPSC-derived HECs across different hematopoietic programs. Remarkably, our analyses showed that CD32 expression identifies HECs that are irreversibly bound to undergo EHT. As such, CD32 expression enriches for cells with hemogenic potential with a higher specificity for hPSC-derived HECs than other known HEC markers. These findings provide a simple method for isolating HECs from human embryos and hPSC cultures, allowing the efficient generation of hematopoietic cells in vitro.
Project description:During embryonic development, blood cells emerge from a subset of specialized endothelial cells, named hemogenic endothelial cells (HECs), via a process known as endothelial-to-hematopoietic transition (EHT). A thorough characterization of HECs and their EHT is essential to guide the efforts to derive this population from human pluripotent stem cells (hPSCs), a critical step to generate therapeutic blood products in vitro. However, current known markers used to isolate HECs are insufficient as they also enrich for arterial endothelial cells that are associated with HECs. To identify specific human HEC markers, we performed transcriptomic analysis of 28-32-day human embryos, a developmental stage characterized by active EHT. We observed that the expression of FCGR2B, encoding for the Fc receptor CD32 previously associated with other specialized endothelia, is highly enriched in the ACE+CD34+ endothelial cell population that contains HECs. Functional ex vivo analyses confirmed that multilineage hematopoietic potential is highly enriched in CD32+ endothelial cells isolated from the aorta-gonad-mesonephros region and yolk sac of human embryos. In addition, CD32 emerged as selective marker for hPSC-derived HECs across different hematopoietic programs. Remarkably, our analyses showed that CD32 expression identifies HECs that are irreversibly bound to undergo EHT. As such, CD32 expression enriches for cells with hemogenic potential with a higher specificity for hPSC-derived HECs than other known HEC markers. These findings provide a simple method for isolating HECs from human embryos and hPSC cultures, allowing the efficient generation of hematopoietic cells in vitro.
Project description:There is an evident, unmet need to develop a commercially available in vitro system that can model inflammatory states of the liver and predict immune-mediated hepatotoxicity of drugs and xenobiotics taken under inflamed conditions. Hepatocyte-Kupffer cell co-cultures can model inflammation-mediated hepatotoxicity; however, Kupffer cell (KC) source remains an important bottleneck for the development of such models. Primary human Kupffer cells (PHKCs) are costly, limited in availability and exhibit donor variability. An alternative cell source for KCs has not been reported. Important paradigm shift from the classical dogma of adult blood-circulating monocyte-derived macrophages to intrahepatic precursor/fetal monocyte-derived macrophages has shed new light into the origin of KCs in vivo. Based on these recent findings, we report here, a novel method to generate human KCs in vitro from stem cells (hPSC-KCs) via fetal monocytes. hPSC-KCs expressed macrophage markers, CD11, CD14, CD68, CD163 and CD32 at gene and protein level and exhibited functional properties such as phagocytosis and Interleukin-6 and Tumor Necrosis Factor-4alpha production upon activation. Importantly, molecular signature, liver-macrophage specific CLEC-4F expression and cytokines production levels of hPSC-KCs were similar to PHKCs but different from non-liver macrophages. We used an inflammatory liver co-culture model to demonstrate that activated hPSC-KCs, but not non-liver macrophages, were able to recapitulate effects of PHKCs when stimulated with paradigm hepatotoxicants. hPSC-KCs developed in this study offer a renewable human cell source for liver-specific macrophages which can be used to develop in vitro systems for modelling the inflammatory state of the liver. Gene expression profiles of 9 samples were determined using Human Gene 2.0 ST Array. These 9 samples included three replicates each of PHKCs (primary human Kupffer cells), human pluripotent stem cell-dervied Kupffer cells (hPSC-KCs) and non-liver macrophages (NL-Mφ).