Erythrophagocytosis drives anti-inflammatory programming of liver macrophages (Bulk RNA seq SPTA CD40 mac)

Under conditions of erythrolytic stress, which accompanies many disease states, macrophages play key roles in phagocytosing damaged RBCs and preventing the toxic effects of cell-free hemoglobin and heme to maintain homeostasis. Using a genetic mouse model of spherocytosis and single-cell RNA sequencing, we show that erythrolytic stress promotes expansion of a specific macrophage population in the liver (which we named “erythrophagocytes”) expressing high levels of Marco and Hmox1 and low levels of MHC class II related genes with an anti-inflammatory gene expression signature. We confirmed the strong anti-inflammatory function of erythrophagocytes in two models of sterile inflammatory liver disease: anti-CD40 antibody-induced systemic inflammation syndrome with necrotizing hepatitis and diet-induced nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD). The unique anti-inflammatory phenotype and function of erythrophagocytes was reproduced in vitro by heme-exposure of mouse macrophages, yielding a transcriptional profile that segregated heme-polarized from classical M1- and M2-polarized cells. The phenotype of anti-inflammatory erythrophagocytes coincided with NFE2L2/NRF2 driven gene expression and was abolished in Nfe2l2/Nrf2-deficient macrophages. Our findings point to a novel pathway that regulates macrophage functions to link RBC homeostasis and heme metabolism with innate immunity. Overall design: Liver macrophages from three sph/sph mice and three littermate wild-type controls treated with intraperitoneal injection (i.p.) of agonistic CD40 antibody injection were isolated using anti-F4/80 antibody coated dynabeads and subjected to bulk RNA-seq. Liver macrophages from three sph/sph mice and three littermate wild-type controls with saline treatment were also subjected to bulk RNA-seq as controls.