Abstract 162: Resident Aortic Intimal Mononuclear Phagocytes (MNPs) in the Promotion of Atherosclerosis
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Atherosclerosis is an underlying cause of cardiovascular disease (CVD) and a leading cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide. Atherosclerosis promotes CVD through plaque formation, restricted blood flow, and thrombotic events. Macrophage accumulation in plaques, their uptake of cholesterol, and subsequent local death drive disease progression, however, there is growing appreciation for more diverse roles of myeloid cells during disease progression. Here, we focused on characterization of so-called vascular dendritic cells (DCs), which we refer to as aortic mononuclear phagocytes (MNP), that reside under the endothelium in plaque-prone areas. Using en face whole-mount confocal microscopy of aortas, we confirm a uniform resident CD11c+ CX3CR1+ MHCII+ MNP population, even in C57/BL6 mice resistant to atherosclerosis. We find aortic MNPs require M-CSF and Flt3 signaling for survival, but are independent of CCR2 and GM-CSF receptor signaling, making them a distinct myeloid population. They express macrophage-restricted genes LysM and CD64, but not dendritic cell specific genes zBTB46 or L-myc. Lineage-tracing analysis using CD115creER and Flt3cre reporter mice indicate that aortic MNPs likely differentiate from definitive hematopoiesis and not early yolk sac progenitors. Parabiosis experiments show that aortic MNPs are self-maintained independent of blood-born progenitors, failing to exchange with blood progenitors for up to 5 months. Aortic MNPs are different from either typical DCs or macrophages and instead appear to blend distinguishing features of each, more closely resembling macrophages. Using our characterization data, we hope to develop an inducible cell-tracking and a cell-depletion model to differentiate the function of aortic MNPs during the progression of atherosclerosis. Overall, we anticipate these functional analyses will reveal, for the first time, the role of resident aortic MNPs in atherosclerosis.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.004 | 0.002 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".