Understanding the Mysterious M2 Macrophage through Activation Markers and Effector Mechanisms

By Tamás Rőszer. Mediators of Inflammation, 2015

1,618 citations recorded by the source corpus.

The alternatively activated or M2 macrophages are immune cells with high phenotypic heterogeneity and are governing functions at the interface of immunity, tissue homeostasis, metabolism, and endocrine signaling. Today the M2 macrophages are identified based on the expression pattern of a set of M2 markers. These markers are transmembrane glycoproteins, scavenger receptors, enzymes, growth factors, hormones, cytokines, and cytokine receptors with diverse and often yet unexplored functions. This review discusses whether these M2 markers can be reliably used to identify M2 macrophages and define their functional subdivisions. Also, it provides an update on the novel signals of the tissue environment and the neuroendocrine system which shape the M2 activation. The possible evolutionary roots of the M2 macrophage functions are also discussed.

Subfields: Biological Psychiatry, Immunology

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/c5cd775be068be5e73fb8ce8277238d3cc693a48

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Citations in the corpus

Macrophage Phenotypes Regulate Scar Formation and Chronic Wound Healing (2017, neutral): “Growth factors/Other ROS, RNS, NO EGF, TGFβ, IGF1, Arg1, COX-2 EGF, TGFβ Arg1, VEGF, TGFβ iNOS [10,21]”
Platelet-Rich Plasma: New Performance Understandings and Therapeutic Considerations in 2020 (2020, background): “In the recent decade, a model has been developed that describes the complex mechanism of M Φ activation as a polarization towards two opposite states: M Φ phenotype 1 (M Φ 1, classical activation) and M Φ phenotype 2 (M Φ 2, alternative activation) [91].”
Macrophage Polarization: Different Gene Signatures in M1(LPS+) vs. Classically and M2(LPS–) vs. Alternatively Activated Macrophages (2019, background): “It has been reported that several types of tissue-resident macrophages express Cd206 in both mouse and humans (68).”
Macrophage Polarization States in the Tumor Microenvironment (2021, background): “Murine M2 macrophages typically express the surface markers Cd206 [17–19,21,22] and Cd163 [23,29] and express/secrete Tgf-β, Pparγ, Ccl14 and Ccl22 [28], and Arg-1 [24,29], similar to human M2 macrophages; however, they also have Chitinase-3-like protein 3 (Chil3), unique from human M2 macrophages (”
The Role of Macrophages in Acute and Chronic Wound Healing and Interventions to Promote Pro-wound Healing Phenotypes (2018, background): “At the 40 h “resolution” time point, there was significantly more macrophage-derived chemokine (MDC) and TGF-β in the wound fluid.”
MSC exosomes mediate cartilage repair by enhancing proliferation, attenuating apoptosis and modulating immune reactivity. (2018, background): “CD86 was assessed as a marker for M1 macrophages [28], and CD163 as marker for M2 macrophages [29].”