PDPN and acute respiratory distress syndrome: 7 8 Our previous data suggest that podoplanin expressed only on these CD11chighCD11bpos inflammatory alveolar macrophages (iAMs) may interact with platelet-expressed CLEC-2 to regulate the local inflammatory response.8 Therefore, our aim here was to investigate whether therapeutic targeting of the CLEC-2–podoplanin pathway is beneficial during a mouse model of ARDS.