Oxford Events, the new replacement for OxTalks, will launch on 16th March. The two-week OxTalks freeze period starts on Monday 2nd March. During this time, there will be no facility to publish or edit events. The existing OxTalks site will remain available to view during this period. Once Oxford Events launches, you will need a Halo login to submit events. Full details are available on the Staff Gateway.
Inflammation is a defence response to tissue damage that requires tight regulation in order to prevent impaired healing. Tissue-resident macrophages have a key role in tissue repair, but the precise molecular mechanisms that regulate the balance between inflammatory and pro-repair macrophage responses during healing remain poorly understood. We demonstrated a major role for sensory neurons in promoting the tissue-repair function of macrophages. In a sunburn-like model of skin damage in mice, the conditional ablation of sensory neurons expressing the Gαi-interacting protein (GINIP) results in defective tissue regeneration and in dermal fibrosis. Elucidation of the underlying molecular mechanisms revealed a crucial role for the neuropeptide TAFA4, which is produced in the skin by C-low threshold mechanoreceptors—a subset of GINIP+ neurons. TAFA4 modulates the inflammatory profile of macrophages directly in vitro. In vivo studies in Tafa4-deficient mice revealed that TAFA4 promotes the production of IL-10 by dermal macrophages after UV-induced skin damage. This TAFA4–IL-10 axis also ensures the survival and maintenance of IL-10+TIM4+ dermal macrophages, reducing skin inflammation and promoting tissue regeneration. These results reveal a neuroimmune regulatory pathway driven by the neuropeptide TAFA4 that promotes the anti-inflammatory functions of macrophages and prevents fibrosis after tissue damage, and could lead to new therapeutic perspectives for inflammatory diseases.