Fueling bone regeneration by rewriting immune metabolism

Fueling bone regeneration by rewriting immune metabolism Chima V. Maduka, DVM, MS, PhD, and Christopher H. Contag, PhD, provide insights on tuning immunometabolism to resolve inflammation and promote repair at the bone–biomaterial interface. Host immune responses ultimately dictate the success or failure of biopolymer implants used in tissue repair. After a bone injury, the ideal response to an implanted biomaterial is brief, coordinated inflammation followed by resolution, vascularization, and remodeling. Too often, however, the response becomes chronic: neutrophils persist, monocyte-derived cells skew inflammatory responses, dendritic cells remain activated, and the foreign-body reaction hardens into a barrier against integration. The central question is no longer whether the immune system matters – it’s how to steer it. A compelling answer is emerging from a recent series of papers from our laboratories, revealing that immune cells can be reprogrammed by targeting their metabolism at the biomaterial interface.