Macrophages in immunoregulation and therapeutics

By Shanze Chen, Abdullah Saeed, QUAN LIU, Qiong Jiang, Haizhao Xu, G. Xiao, L. Rao, Yanhong Duo. Signal Transduction and Targeted Therapy, 2023

1,870 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Macrophages exist in various tissues, several body cavities, and around mucosal surfaces and are a vital part of the innate immune system for host defense against many pathogens and cancers. Macrophages possess binary M1/M2 macrophage polarization settings, which perform a central role in an array of immune tasks via intrinsic signal cascades and, therefore, must be precisely regulated. Many crucial questions about macrophage signaling and immune modulation are yet to be uncovered. In addition, the clinical importance of tumor-associated macrophages is becoming more widely recognized as significant progress has been made in understanding their biology. Moreover, they are an integral part of the tumor microenvironment, playing a part in the regulation of a wide variety of processes including angiogenesis, extracellular matrix transformation, cancer cell proliferation, metastasis, immunosuppression, and resistance to chemotherapeutic and checkpoint blockade immunotherapies. Herein, we discuss immune regulation in macrophage polarization and signaling, mechanical stresses and modulation, metabolic signaling pathways, mitochondrial and transcriptional, and epigenetic regulation. Furthermore, we have broadly extended the understanding of macrophages in extracellular traps and the essential roles of autophagy and aging in regulating macrophage functions. Moreover, we discussed recent advances in macrophages-mediated immune regulation of autoimmune diseases and tumorigenesis. Lastly, we discussed targeted macrophage therapy to portray prospective targets for therapeutic strategies in health and diseases.

Subfields: Immunology, Molecular Biology

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/2a0e24469a43769608758058163c972feb81112c

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In Molecular Biology

Citations in the corpus

Multifaceted role of mTOR (mammalian target of rapamycin) signaling pathway in human health and disease (2023, background): “225,226 M1 macrophages can kill tumor cells, while M2 macrophages promote tumor growth, invasion, and metastasis.”
Nanomedicine-Driven Modulation of the Gut–Brain Axis: Innovative Approaches to Managing Chronic Inflammation in Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s Disease (2025, unknown): “This shift enhances the cell’s inflammatory capacity and perpetuates the chronic state of immune activation as presented on Figure 1 [14].”
Unraveling the Role of Tumor-Infiltrating Immune Cells in Head and Neck Squamous Cell Carcinoma: Implications for Antitumor Immune Responses and Immunotherapy (2025, unknown): “…(TAMs) are a prominent component of the tumor stroma, with phenotypes ranging from M1-macrophages (antitumor, pro-inflammatory), which promote cytotoxic responses against tumors, to M2-macrophages (pro-tumor, immunosuppressive), which support tumor progression and suppress immune activity [19,20].”