Innate Immune Training of Granulopoiesis Promotes Anti-tumor Activity

Trained innate immunity, induced via modulation of mature myeloid cells or their bone marrow progenitors, mediates sustained increased responsiveness to secondary challenges. Here, we investigated whether anti-tumor immunity can be enhanced through induction of trained immunity. Pre-treatment of mice with beta-glucan, a fungal-derived prototypical agonist of trained immunity, resulted in diminished tumor growth. The anti-tumor effect of beta-glucan-induced trained immunity was associated with transcriptomic and epigenetic rewiring of granulopoiesis and neutrophil reprogramming toward an anti-tumor phenotype; this process required type I interferon signaling irrespective of adaptive immunity in the host. Adoptive transfer of neutrophils from beta-glucan-trained mice to naive recipients suppressed tumor growth in the latter in a ROS-dependent manner. Moreover, the anti-tumor effect of beta-glucan-induced trained granulopoiesis was transmissible by bone marrow transplantation to recipient naive mice. Our findings identify a novel and therapeutically relevant anti-tumor facet of trained immunity involving appropriate rewiring of granulopoiesis

Soluble mannose receptor induces proinflammatory macrophage activation and metaflammation

Proinflammatory activation of macrophages in metabolic tissues is critically important in the induction of obesity-induced metaflammation. Here, we demonstrate that the soluble mannose receptor (sMR) plays a direct functional role in both macrophage activation and metaflammation. We show that sMR binds CD45 on macrophages and inhibits its phosphatase activity, leading to an Src/Akt/ NF-kappa B-mediated cellular reprogramming toward an inflammatory phenotype both in vitro and in vivo. Remarkably, increased serum sMR levels were observed in obese mice and humans and directly correlated with body weight. Importantly, enhanced sMR levels increase serum proinflammatory cytokines, activate tissue macrophages, and promote insulin resistance. Altogether, our results reveal sMR as regulator of proinflammatory macrophage activation, which could constitute a therapeutic target for metaflammation and other hyperinflammatory diseases.Diabetes mellitus: pathophysiological changes and therap

NCX1 represents an ionic Na+ sensing mechanism in macrophages

Inflammation and infection can trigger local tissue Na(+)accumulation. This Na+-rich environment boosts proinflammatory activation of monocyte/macrophage-like cells (M phi s) and their antimicrobial activity. Enhanced Na+-driven M phi function requires the osmoprotective transcription factor nuclear factor of activated T cells 5 (NFAT5), which augments nitric oxide (NO) production and contributes to increased autophagy. However, the mechanism of Na(+)sensing in M phi s remained unclear. High extracellular Na(+)levels (high salt [HS]) trigger a substantial Na(+)influx and Ca(2+)loss. Here, we show that the Na+/Ca(2+)exchanger 1 (NCX1, also known as solute carrier family 8 member A1 [SLC8A1]) plays a critical role in HS-triggered Na(+)influx, concomitant Ca(2+)efflux, and subsequent augmented NFAT5 accumulation. Moreover, interfering with NCX1 activity impairs HS-boosted inflammatory signaling, infection-triggered autolysosome formation, and subsequent antibacterial activity. Taken together, this demonstrates that NCX1 is able to sense Na(+)and is required for amplifying inflammatory and antimicrobial M phi responses upon HS exposure. Manipulating NCX1 offers a new strategy to regulate M phi function

Disease severity-specific neutrophil signatures in blood transcriptomes stratify COVID-19 patients

BACKGROUND: The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic is currently leading to increasing numbers of COVID-19 patients all over the world. Clinical presentations range from asymptomatic, mild respiratory tract infection, to severe cases with acute respiratory distress syndrome, respiratory failure, and death. Reports on a dysregulated immune system in the severe cases call for a better characterization and understanding of the changes in the immune system. METHODS: In order to dissect COVID-19-driven immune host responses, we performed RNA-seq of whole blood cell transcriptomes and granulocyte preparations from mild and severe COVID-19 patients and analyzed the data using a combination of conventional and data-driven co-expression analysis. Additionally, publicly available data was used to show the distinction from COVID-19 to other diseases. Reverse drug target prediction was used to identify known or novel drug candidates based on finding from data-driven findings. RESULTS: Here, we profiled whole blood transcriptomes of 39 COVID-19 patients and 10 control donors enabling a data-driven stratification based on molecular phenotype. Neutrophil activation-associated signatures were prominently enriched in severe patient groups, which was corroborated in whole blood transcriptomes from an independent second cohort of 30 as well as in granulocyte samples from a third cohort of 16 COVID-19 patients (44 samples). Comparison of COVID-19 blood transcriptomes with those of a collection of over 3100 samples derived from 12 different viral infections, inflammatory diseases, and independent control samples revealed highly specific transcriptome signatures for COVID-19. Further, stratified transcriptomes predicted patient subgroup-specific drug candidates targeting the dysregulated systemic immune response of the host. CONCLUSIONS: Our study provides novel insights in the distinct molecular subgroups or phenotypes that are not simply explained by clinical parameters. We show that whole blood transcriptomes are extremely informative for COVID-19 since they capture granulocytes which are major drivers of disease severity

Swarm Learning for decentralized and confidential clinical machine learning

Fast and reliable detection of patients with severe and heterogeneous illnesses is a major goal of precision medicine. Patients with leukaemia can be identified using machine learning on the basis of their blood transcriptomes. However, there is an increasing divide between what is technically possible and what is allowed, because of privacy legislation. Here, to facilitate the integration of any medical data from any data owner worldwide without violating privacy laws, we introduce Swarm Learning—a decentralized machine-learning approach that unites edge computing, blockchain-based peer-to-peer networking and coordination while maintaining confidentiality without the need for a central coordinator, thereby going beyond federated learning. To illustrate the feasibility of using Swarm Learning to develop disease classifiers using distributed data, we chose four use cases of heterogeneous diseases (COVID-19, tuberculosis, leukaemia and lung pathologies). With more than 16,400 blood transcriptomes derived from 127 clinical studies with non-uniform distributions of cases and controls and substantial study biases, as well as more than 95,000 chest X-ray images, we show that Swarm Learning classifiers outperform those developed at individual sites. In addition, Swarm Learning completely fulfils local confidentiality regulations by design. We believe that this approach will notably accelerate the introduction of precision medicine

Severe COVID-19 is marked by a dysregulated myeloid cell compartment. Schulte-Schrepping et al., 2020

Supplemental tables of the publication "Severe COVID-19 is marked by a dysregulated myeloid cell compartment." Schulte-Schrepping et al., 2020. Table S1 - Cohort details (related to all Figures) Table S2 - Detailed information on antibody panels used for mass cytometry analysis (related to Figure 1,3,6) Table S3 - List of antibodies used for multi-color flow cytometry (related to Figure 1,3,6). Table S4 - Cluster-specific marker gene lists from the scRNA-seq analyses (related to Figure 2,4,5,7 + S2-4,S6) Severe COVID-19 is marked by a dysregulated myeloid cell compartment Jonas Schulte-Schrepping, Nico Reusch, Daniela Paclik, Kevin Baßler, Stephan Schlickeiser, Bowen Zhang, Benjamin Krämer, Tobias Krammer, Sophia Brumhard, Lorenzo Bonaguro, Elena De Domenico, Daniel Wendisch, Martin Grasshoff, Theodore S. Kapellos, Michael Beckstette, Tal Pecht, Adem Saglam, Oliver Dietrich, Henrik E. Mei, Axel R. Schulz, Claudia Conrad, Désirée Kunkel, Ehsan Vafadarnejad, Cheng-Jian Xu, Arik Horne, Miriam Herbert, Anna Drews, Charlotte Thibeault, Moritz Pfeiffer, Stefan Hippenstiel, Andreas Hocke, Holger Müller-Redetzky, Katrin-Moira Heim, Felix Machleidt, Alexander Uhrig, Laure Bosquillon de Jarcy, Linda Jürgens, Miriam Stegemann, Christoph R. Glösenkamp, Hans-Dieter Volk, Christine Goffinet, Markus Landthaler, Emanuel Wyler, Philipp Georg, Maria Schneider, Chantip Dang-Heine, Nick Neuwinger, Kai Kappert, Rudolf Tauber, Victor Corman, Jan Raabe, Kim Melanie Kaiser, Michael To Vinh, Gereon Rieke, Christian Meisel, Thomas Ulas, Matthias Becker, Robert Geffers, Martin Witzenrath, Christian Drosten, Norbert Suttorp, Christof von Kalle, Florian Kurth, Kristian Händler, Joachim L. Schultze, Anna C Aschenbrenner, Yang Li, Jacob Nattermann, Birgit Sawitzki, Antoine-Emmanuel Saliba, Leif Erik Sander, Deutsche COVID-19 OMICS Initiative (DeCOI) Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a mild to moderate respiratory tract infection, however, a subset of patients progresses to severe disease and respiratory failure. The mechanism of protective immunity in mild forms and the pathogenesis of severe COVID-19, associated with increased neutrophil counts and dysregulated immune responses, remains unclear. In a dual-center, two-cohort study, we combined single-cell RNA-sequencing and single-cell proteomics of whole blood and peripheral blood mononuclear cells to determine changes in immune cell composition and activation in mild vs. severe COVID-19 (242 samples from 109 individuals) over time. HLA-DR high CD11c high inflammatory monocytes with an interferon-stimulated gene signature were elevated in mild COVID-19. Severe COVID-19 was marked by occurrence of neutrophil precursors, as evidence of emergency myelopoiesis, dysfunctional mature neutrophils, and HLA-DR low monocytes. Our study provides detailed insights into the systemic immune response to SARS-CoV-2 infection and it reveals profound alterations in the myeloid cell compartment associated with severe COVID-19

Severe COVID-19 is marked by a dysregulated myeloid cell compartment. Schulte-Schrepping et al., 2020

Supplemental tables of the publication "Severe COVID-19 is marked by a dysregulated myeloid cell compartment." Schulte-Schrepping et al., 2020. Table S1 - Cohort details (related to all Figures) Table S2 - Detailed information on antibody panels used for mass cytometry analysis (related to Figure 1,3,6) Table S3 - List of antibodies used for multi-color flow cytometry (related to Figure 1,3,6). Table S4 - Cluster-specific marker gene lists from the scRNA-seq analyses (related to Figure 2,4,5,7 + S2-4,S6) Severe COVID-19 is marked by a dysregulated myeloid cell compartment Jonas Schulte-Schrepping, Nico Reusch, Daniela Paclik, Kevin Baßler, Stephan Schlickeiser, Bowen Zhang, Benjamin Krämer, Tobias Krammer, Sophia Brumhard, Lorenzo Bonaguro, Elena De Domenico, Daniel Wendisch, Martin Grasshoff, Theodore S. Kapellos, Michael Beckstette, Tal Pecht, Adem Saglam, Oliver Dietrich, Henrik E. Mei, Axel R. Schulz, Claudia Conrad, Désirée Kunkel, Ehsan Vafadarnejad, Cheng-Jian Xu, Arik Horne, Miriam Herbert, Anna Drews, Charlotte Thibeault, Moritz Pfeiffer, Stefan Hippenstiel, Andreas Hocke, Holger Müller-Redetzky, Katrin-Moira Heim, Felix Machleidt, Alexander Uhrig, Laure Bosquillon de Jarcy, Linda Jürgens, Miriam Stegemann, Christoph R. Glösenkamp, Hans-Dieter Volk, Christine Goffinet, Markus Landthaler, Emanuel Wyler, Philipp Georg, Maria Schneider, Chantip Dang-Heine, Nick Neuwinger, Kai Kappert, Rudolf Tauber, Victor Corman, Jan Raabe, Kim Melanie Kaiser, Michael To Vinh, Gereon Rieke, Christian Meisel, Thomas Ulas, Matthias Becker, Robert Geffers, Martin Witzenrath, Christian Drosten, Norbert Suttorp, Christof von Kalle, Florian Kurth, Kristian Händler, Joachim L. Schultze, Anna C Aschenbrenner, Yang Li, Jacob Nattermann, Birgit Sawitzki, Antoine-Emmanuel Saliba, Leif Erik Sander, Deutsche COVID-19 OMICS Initiative (DeCOI) Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a mild to moderate respiratory tract infection, however, a subset of patients progresses to severe disease and respiratory failure. The mechanism of protective immunity in mild forms and the pathogenesis of severe COVID-19, associated with increased neutrophil counts and dysregulated immune responses, remains unclear. In a dual-center, two-cohort study, we combined single-cell RNA-sequencing and single-cell proteomics of whole blood and peripheral blood mononuclear cells to determine changes in immune cell composition and activation in mild vs. severe COVID-19 (242 samples from 109 individuals) over time. HLA-DR high CD11c high inflammatory monocytes with an interferon-stimulated gene signature were elevated in mild COVID-19. Severe COVID-19 was marked by occurrence of neutrophil precursors, as evidence of emergency myelopoiesis, dysfunctional mature neutrophils, and HLA-DR low monocytes. Our study provides detailed insights into the systemic immune response to SARS-CoV-2 infection and it reveals profound alterations in the myeloid cell compartment associated with severe COVID-19