Impact of environmental exposures on the fate, the spatio- temporal regulation and the functional specification of lung- resident and recruited parenchymal macrophages.

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Andreas Schlitzer
• Subject Area: Immunology
• Term: since 2025
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 555124188

Mammalian lungs are at the interface between the host and the external world and are continuously exposed to a wide range of environmental immunostimulatory agents that can profoundly shape lung immunity. While environment-driven modulation of alveolar macrophages is being more and more understood, the impact of environmental exposures on the lung interstitial macrophage (IM) compartment remains underinvestigated. In this project, we will use models of environmental exposures to bêta-glucan (environmental fungi components, b-glu) and to urban particulate matters (UPM) to interrogate the adaptation of lung resident IMs (resIMs) and recruited IMs (recIMs) to such exposure at the highest resolution. We will investigate their diversity, their fate, their spatio-temporal organization, their subtissular niches, and the extrinsic and intrinsic molecular programs imprinting the functional specification of both resIMs and recIMs. A better mechanistic understanding of these processes represents an unmet need that will help manipulating the fate of resident and recruited IMs to envision therapeutic interventions for diseases in which IM (dys)functions are involved. This ambitious international project will only be possible thanks to the joint expertises of the promoter (expert in lung IM biology, novel tools to track and target these macrophages) and of the co-promoter (proposed models of environmental exposures, multiplex imaging and spatial technologies).

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• International Connection: Belgium
• Cooperation Partner: Professor Dr. Thomas Marichal