AUTHOR=Bhattacharyya Aritra , Torre Paola , Yadav Preeti , Boostanpour Kaveh , Chen Tian Y. , Tsukui Tatsuya , Sheppard Dean , Muramatsu Rieko , Seed Robert I. , Nishimura Stephen L. , Jung James B. , Tang Xin-Zi , Allen Christopher D. C. , Bhattacharya Mallar TITLE=Macrophage Cx43 Is Necessary for Fibroblast Cytosolic Calcium and Lung Fibrosis After Injury JOURNAL=Frontiers in Immunology VOLUME=13 YEAR=2022 URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/immunology/articles/10.3389/fimmu.2022.880887 DOI=10.3389/fimmu.2022.880887 ISSN=1664-3224 ABSTRACT=
Macrophages are paracrine signalers that regulate tissular responses to injury through interactions with parenchymal cells. Connexin hemichannels have recently been shown to mediate efflux of ATP by macrophages, with resulting cytosolic calcium responses in adjacent cells. Here we report that lung macrophages with deletion of connexin 43 (MacΔCx43) had decreased ATP efflux into the extracellular space and induced a decreased cytosolic calcium response in co-cultured fibroblasts compared to WT macrophages. Furthermore, MacΔCx43 mice had decreased lung fibrosis after bleomycin-induced injury. Interrogating single cell data for human and mouse, we found that