Cell-type-specific regulation of IL-1-driven inflammation in fungal infection

Inflammation is a very powerful innate immune response to tissue injury; however, it needs to be tightly regulated to prevent protracted and potentially damaging inflammation. In this project we study the impact of a negative regulator of IL-1 signaling that can be produced by different immune cell subsets. In particular, we intend to identify the contribution of different immune cell subsets, such as neutrophils, macrophages and dendritic cells to the regulation of the anti-fungal immune response. Our prior studies revealed that while macrophage-specific conditional KO mice are strongly protected from the fungal infection, the CD11c-specific conditional KO only shows transient protection. In this RNAseq experiment we aim to identify differentially regulated gene sets and pathways responsible for these effects. In addition, we intend to compare the results of these analyses to a data set generated from a larger cohort of human patiens with disseminated fungal infection.