Macrophages Come To The Rescue.

Abstract

The study by Zhao and colleagues, in this issue of <i>Cancer Research</i>, builds on previous work where they showed that transient activation of Hedgehog signaling within the murine submandibular gland rescued radiation-induced salivary gland dysfunction. The current study provides mechanistic insight into this phenomenon by showing that restoration of radiation-depleted resident macrophages through prorepair paracrine interactions with endothelial cells and epithelial progenitors rescued salivary function.<i>See related article by Zhao et al., p. 5531</i>.