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Updated: Jan 17, 2026

Isolation and In Vitro Culture of Murine and Human Alveolar Macrophages
Published on: April 20, 2018
IRF4 sends alveolar macrophages spiraling into an identity crisis during type 2 immunity
Anika Hutton1, Hernandez Moura Silva2
1Laboratory of Immunophysiology, The Ragon Institute of Mass General, MIT, and Harvard, Cambridge, MA, USA; Department of Biology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA.
None:
A long-standing debate in the field asks whether resident tissue macrophages are terminally differentiated or remain capable of changing their fate and function during inflammation. In this issue of Immunity, Verwaerde et al. uncover an IRF4-driven circuit that reshapes alveolar macrophage identity and positions them as contributors to allergic pathophysiology.
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