Chuang Tang

Macrophages are the foremost controllers of innate and acquired immunity, playing important roles in tissue homeostasis, vasculogenesis, and congenital metabolism. In vitro macrophages are crucial models for understanding the regulatory mechanism of immune responses and the diagnosis or treatment of a variety of diseases. Pigs are the most important agricultural animals and valuable animal models for preclinical studies, but there is no unified method for porcine macrophage isolation and differentiation at present; no systematic study has compared porcine macrophages obtained by different methods. In the current study, we obtained two M1 macrophages (M1_IFNγ + LPS, and M1_GM-CSF) and two M2 macrophages (M2_IL4 + IL10, and M2_M-CSF), and compared the transcriptomic profiles between and within macrophage phenotypes. We observed the transcriptional differences either between or within phenotypes. Porcine M1 and M2 macrophages have consistent gene signatures with human and mouse macrophage phenotypes, respectively. Moreover, we performed GSEA analysis to attribute the prognostic value of our macrophage signatures in discriminating various pathogen infections. Our study provided a framework to guide the interrogation of macrophage phenotypes in the context of health and disease. The approach described here could be used to propose new biomarkers for diagnosis in diverse clinical settings including porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome virus (PRRSV), African swine fever virus (ASFV), Toxoplasma gondii (T. gondii), porcine circovirus type 2 (PCV2), Haemophilus parasuis serovar 4 (HPS4), Mycoplasma hyopneumoniae (Mhp), Streptococcus suis serotype 2 (SS2), and LPS from Salmonella enterica serotype minnesota Re 595.

The intestine is a tubular organ with multiple functions such as digestion absorption and immunity, but the functions of each intestinal segments are different. Intestinal regionalization is necessary for normal physiological function, but it also means the research results obtained at specific sites may not be applicable to other intestinal segments. In order to comprehensively describe the functional changes in the intestine, different intestinal segments and their contents (duodenum, jejunum, ileum, cecum, colon, and rectum) of guinea pigs were collected for RNA seq and 16S rRNA seq, respectively. The results showed differential genes of each intestinal segment mainly involve mucosa, digestion, absorption, and immunity. The gene sets related to fat, bill salts, vitamins, aggregates, amino acids, and water absorption were highly expressed in the small intestine, and the gene sets related to metal ions, nucleotides, and SCFAs were highly expressed in the large intestine. In terms of immunity, the CD8⁺ T, Th1, eosinophils, pDCs, and natural killer (NK) T cells in the small intestine showed higher scores than those in the large intestine, while the pattern-recognition receptor signaling pathway-related genes are highly expressed in the large intestine. In terms of microbial composition, Proteobacteria and Actinobacteria are abundant in the small intestine, while Firmicutes and Spirochaete are abundant in large intestine. The correlation analysis showed a high correlation between intestinal microorganisms and gene modules related to digestion and absorption. In addition, cross-species analysis showed the SCFA metabolism gene expression trends in human and rodent intestine were different. In conclusion, we analyzed the changes in substance transport, immune and microbial composition between different intestinal segments of guinea pigs, and explored the relationship between intestinal transcriptome and microorganisms, our research will provides a reference for subsequent intestinal-related research.