Interstitial macrophages: immune cells that prevent asthma

Microbe-derived molecules able to stimulate the immune system are omnipresent in the air, and the presence of one such molecule (LPS) promotes asthma in some individuals. What prevents inhalation of LPS from promoting asthma in the majority of individuals is not well understood. However, Fabrice Bureau and colleagues, at the University of Liege, Belgium, have now ascribed this function in mice to a population of lung immune cells known as lung interstitial macrophages (IMs). Surprisingly, this is the first in vivo function described for these cells...

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