Effects of hypoxia on heterotypic macrophage interactions

The role of macrophages in modulating the systemic response to hypoxia and oxidative stress is emerging from basic biological processes, such as the regulation of red blood cell production, and from analysis of tumor progression, as a key factor determining whether cells survive, proliferate or differentiate under micro-environmental pressures. Our recent work identified a novel role for macrophages in promoting expansion of erythroid progenitors in vitro while confirming previous data that macrophages are not required for red cell enucleation. This work emerged from analyses of hypoxia and cell death in the Rb null fetal liver where we demonstrated that defects in erythropoietic islands were due to deterioration in the fetal liver microenvironment that disrupted heterotypic interactions of macrophages with erythroblasts and not to intrinsic defects in Rb null macrophages. The significance of these findings for the effect of hypoxia on macrophage interactions and activity during tumor progression is also discussed.