REVIEW article
Front. Immunol.
Sec. Inflammation
This article is part of the Research TopicMacrophages at the Crossroads of Fibrosis and ImmunosuppressionView all articles
Metabolic reprogramming of macrophages in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease
Provisionally accepted
- 1Shandong University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Jinan, China
- 2Shandong Provincial Hospital, Jinan, China
- 3Shandong University of Traditional Chinese Medicine Affiliated Hospital, Jinan, China
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Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is currently one of the major causes of death and hospitalization globally. Pulmonary inflammation and oxidative stress are considered important mechanisms underlying the disease. Recent studies have indicated that the metabolic processes of immune cells in COPD, notably alveolar macrophages (AMs), may undergo significant alterations, exhibiting distinct metabolic characteristics related to their functional state and polarization phenotype. This phenomenon is known as the immunometabolic reprogramming of macrophages. In this article, we review the polarization phenotype and metabolic characteristics of macrophages in COPD, as well as the mechanisms affecting macrophage metabolism, and discuss the potential significance of pathways targeting immunometabolism of AMs in the treatment of COPD.
Keywords: chronic obstructive pulmonary disease1, alveolar macrophages2, macrophage polarization3, immunometabolic reprogramming4, immunometabolism5
Received: 12 Aug 2025; Accepted: 14 Nov 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Qin, Huang and Zhang. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Wei Zhang, huxizhijia@126.com
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