Published in Journal of Neuroinflammation
Microglia react to danger signals by rapid and targeted extension of cellular processes towards the source of the signal. This positive chemotactic response is accompanied by a hyperpolarization of the microglia membrane. Here, we show that optogenetic depolarization of microglia has little effect on baseline motility, but significantly slows down ...
Published in Journal of Neuroinflammation
BackgroundHeat-shock protein B1 (HSPB1) is among the most well-known and versatile member of the evolutionarily conserved family of small heat-shock proteins. It has been implicated to serve a neuroprotective role against various neurological disorders via its modulatory activity on inflammation, yet its exact role in neuroinflammation is poorly un...
Published in Journal of Neuroinflammation
BackgroundMicroglia are highly motile phagocytic cells in the healthy brain with surveillance and clearance functions. Although microglia have been shown to engulf cellular debris following brain insult, less is known about their phagocytic function in the absence of injury. Propofol can inhibit microglial activity, including phagocytosis. Milk fat...
Published in Journal of Neuroinflammation
BackgroundRecent work has established that Parkinson’s disease (PD) patients have an altered gut microbiome, along with signs of intestinal inflammation. This could help explain the high degree of gastric disturbances in PD patients, as well as potentially be linked to the migration of peripheral inflammatory factors into the brain. To our knowledg...
Published in BMC Ophthalmology
BackgroundRetinal degeneration is often accompanied by microglia-mediated neuroinflammation. Ferulic acid (FA), an active ingredient of traditional Chinese medicines (TCMs), has been reported to have anti-inflammatory effects. This study explores the impact of FA on microglia-mediated neuroinflammation and associated retinal degeneration in rd10 mi...
Published in Journal of Neuroinflammation
BackgroundP2X7 receptor (P2X7R) is an ATP-gated nonselective cationic channel playing important roles in a variety of physiological functions, including inflammation, and apoptotic or necrotic cell death. An extracellular domain has ten cysteine residues forming five intrasubunit disulfide bonds, which are needed for the P2X7R trafficking to the ce...
Published in Journal of Neuroinflammation
BackgroundNeuroinflammation is associated with various chronic neurological diseases, including epilepsy; however, neuroimaging approaches for visualizing neuroinflammation have not been used in the clinical routine yet. In this study, we used the translocator protein positron emission tomography (PET) with [11C] DPA713 to investigate neuroinflamma...
Published in Journal of Neuroinflammation
BackgroundAfter spinal cord injury (SCI), glial scarring is mainly formed around the lesion and inhibits axon regeneration. Recently, we reported that anti-β1 integrin antibody (β1Ab) had a therapeutic effect on astrocytes by preventing the induction of glial scar formation. However, the cellular components within the glial scar are not only astroc...
Published in Journal of Neuroinflammation
BackgroundMicroglia are resident immunocompetent and phagocytic cells in the CNS. Pro-inflammatory microglia, stimulated by microbial signals such as bacterial lipopolysaccharide (LPS), viral RNAs, or inflammatory cytokines, are neurotoxic and associated with pathogenesis of several neurodegenerative diseases. Long non-coding RNAs (lncRNA) are emer...
Published in Journal of Neuroinflammation
BackgroundThe role of microglia in Alzheimer’s disease (AD) pathogenesis is becoming increasingly important, as activation of these cell types likely contributes to both pathological and protective processes associated with all phases of the disease. During early AD pathogenesis, one of the first areas of degeneration is the locus coeruleus (LC), w...
