Highlights of IMMUNOLOGY2026™ - Invited Program Recordings-Recruitment of immune cells from vascular and avascular sites to altered tissues

Recruitment of immune cells from vascular and avascular sites to altered tissues

Video Transcription

Video Summary

Paul Kubes describes decades of intravital microscopy studies showing how immune cells behave in living tissues. He revisits the classic leukocyte recruitment cascade, then explains how different integrins and vessels control neutrophil adhesion and migration. Moving from cremaster muscle to solid organs, especially the liver, his group discovered immune cells patrolling inside sinusoids, including Kupffer cells and NKT cells, and showed how these compartments change during fibrosis and infection. He also examined sterile liver injury, revealing chemotactic zones, mitochondrial peptides, neutrophil repair roles, monocyte conversion, and NKT-cell&ndash;driven IL-4 responses. In the peritoneal cavity, he found macrophages and mast cells rapidly form injury-sealing aggregates, aided by scavenger receptors and biomolecular condensates. Overall, the talk argues that immune cell recruitment is highly tissue-specific, dynamic, and far more sophisticated than simple inflammation models suggest.

Keywords

intravital microscopy

immune cell recruitment

neutrophil adhesion

liver sinusoids

Kupffer cells

sterile liver injury