Alveolar macrophages maintain lung homeostasis by performing important roles in
immunosurveillance and lung surfactant catabolism. They express high levels of CD44 and
are one of the few macrophage populations that constitutively bind hyaluronan, a ligand for
CD44 and component of pericellular and extracellular matrices. Using adoptive transfer
experiments and a mouse model of inflammation, we found that alveolar macrophages are
initially depleted after an inflammatory insult then rapidly self-renew and return to original …