Abstract
Macrophages play a vital role in the innate immune system responding to a host of signals from the microenvironment. We hypothesise that macrophage differentiation and activation will be different if the surrounding cells have an altered mitochondrial metabolism, considering that alterations of mitochondrial metabolism effect the secretome of cells, with respect of both cytokines and metabolites.
This hypothesis will be examined in patient-derived cellular models using experimental and computational metabolic flux analysis. We aim to model the correlation between altered metabolism and cytokine secretion and/or metabolite signalling, which in turn can be used to explain macrophage activation.
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