Autophagy is required to prevent early pro-inflammatory responses and neutrophil recruitment during Mycobacterium tuberculosis infection without affecting pathogen replication in macrophages

The immune response to Mycobacterium tuberculosis infection determines tuberculosis disease outcomes, yet we have an incomplete understanding of what immune factors contribute to a protective immune response. Neutrophilic inflammation has been associated with poor disease prognosis in humans and in animal models during M. tuberculosis infection and, therefore, must be tightly regulated. ATG5 is an essential autophagy protein that is required in innate immune cells to control neutrophil-dominated inflammation and promote survival during M. tuberculosis infection, however, the mechanistic basis for how ATG5 regulates neutrophil recruitment is unknown. To interrogate what innate immune cells require ATG5 to control neutrophil recruitment during M. tuberculosis infection, we used different mouse strains that conditionally delete Atg5 in specific cell types. We found that ATG5 is required in CD11c+ cells (lung macrophages and dendritic cells) to control the production of proinflammatory cytokines and chemokines during M. tuberculosis infection, which would otherwise promote neutrophil recruitment. This role for ATG5 is autophagy-dependent, but independent of mitophagy, LC3-associated phagocytosis, and inflammasome activation, which are the most well-characterized ways that autophagy proteins regulate inflammation. In addition to the increase in proinflammatory cytokine production during M. tuberculosis infection, loss of ATG5 in innate immune cells also results in an early induction of TH17 responses. Despite prior published in vitro cell culture experiments supporting a role for autophagy in controlling M. tuberculosis replication in macrophages, loss of autophagy does not affect M. tuberculosis burden in macrophages in vivo and, therefore, the effects of autophagy on inflammatory responses occur without changes in pathogen numbers. These findings reveal new roles for autophagy proteins in lung resident macrophages and dendritic cells that are required to suppress inflammatory responses that are associated with poor control of M. tuberculosis infection.