Abstract
Sexual dimorphism in the mammalian immune system is manifested as more frequent and severe infectious diseases in males and, on the other hand, higher rates of autoimmune disease in females, yet insights underlying those differences are still lacking. Here we characterize sex differences in the immune system by RNA and ATAC sequence profiling of untreated and interferon-induced immune cell types in male and female mice. We detect very few differentially expressed genes between male and female immune cells except in macrophages from three different tissues. Accordingly, very few genomic regions display differences in accessibility between sexes. Transcriptional sexual dimorphism in macrophages is mediated by genes of innate immune pathways, and increases after interferon stimulation. Thus, the stronger immune response of females may be due to more activated innate immune pathways prior to pathogen invasion.
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Article number | 4295 |
| Journal | Nature communications |
| Volume | 10 |
| Issue number | 1 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Dec 1 2019 |
Funding
The authors wish to thank the ImmGen consortium, especially Professor Christophe Benoist. Research reported in this publication was supported by Broad-Israel Science Foundation Grant 1644/15, Israel Science Foundation Grant 500/15, and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases of the National Institutes of Health under Award Number R24AI072073. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health. S.T. G.-O. was supported by Hi-Tech, Bio-Tech, and Chemo-tech fellowship of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev.
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- General Chemistry
- General Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology
- General Physics and Astronomy
