Development and function of tissue resident macrophages in mice

•Macrophage subsets are heterogeneous in their developmental hematopoietic origin.•Erythro-myeloid progenitors give rise to tissue macrophages persisting until adulthood.•Tissue macrophages have homeostatic functions depending on their anatomic location.•Tissue adaption of macrophages occurs on phenotypic, epigenetic and genetic levels​.

Macrophages are important for tissue development, homeostasis as well as immune response upon injury or infection. For a long time they were only seen as one uniform group of phagocytes with a common origin and similar functions. However, this view has been challenged in the last decade and revealed a complex diversity of tissue resident macrophages. Here, we want to present the current view on macrophage development and tissue specification and we will discuss differences as well as common patterns between heterogeneous macrophage subpopulations.