Identification of ILC2 in the Lung Using Flow Cytometry

Group 2 innate lymphoid cells (ILC2), despite their scarcity, are the dominant innate lymphoid cell population in the lung, orchestrating innate immunity and adaptive immunity (Germain and Huang. Curr Opin Immunol 56:76-81, 2019; Krabbendam et al. Immunol Rev 286:74-85, 2018; Mindt et al. Front Immunol 9:840, 2018) . Recent studies reveal that ILC2 play critical roles in inflammation-associated lung injury during sepsis (Lai et al. Cell Death Dis 9:369, 2018; Xu et al. Immunol Cell Biol 96:935-947). Therefore, studies aiming to understand the pathobiology of ILC2 may reveal new therapeutic strategies for sepsis. However, the identification of ILC2 requires multiple surface and intracellular markers. This makes the detection of ILC2 in the lung challenging. Here we describe a method to detect ILC2 in the mouse lung using flow cytometry.