The prion protein (PrP(C)) is predominantly expressed in the nervous and immune systems and is involved in relevant cell signaling. Microglia participate in neuroimmune interactions, and their regulatory mechanisms are critical for both health and disease. Despite recent reports with a microglial cell line, little is known about the relevance of PrP(C) in brain microglia. We investigated the ro...

Somatic mutation of Isocitrate dehydrogenase 1 (IDH1) at the locus of R132 (IDH1 (R132H)) occurs in > 70% of WHO grade II-III gliomas and secondary glioblastomas. To date it remains unknown whether the mutation is restricted to glial tumor cells. Microglial cells are the resident macrophages in the central nervous system. Tumor-infiltrating microglial cells/macrophages are major stromal cellula...

may have different origins, i.e. those arising from the primitive macrophages from the yolk sac and those newly differentiated from monocytes or their progenitors. Over 95% of all microglia are generated after birth and after the formation of the blood–brain barrier (BBB) and there has been an ongoing debate regarding the maintenance of the microglial population in the adult CNS. One hypothesis...

Inflammation of the CNS is usually locally limited to avoid devastating consequences. Critical players involved in this immune regulatory process are the resident immune cells of the brain, the microglia. Interactions between the growing family of B7 costimulatory ligands and their receptors are increasingly recognized as important pathways for costimulation and/or inhibition of immune response...

Although microglia-mediated cytotoxicity has been extensively investigated, little is known about the potential microglial role in neuronal and glial support. Characterization of trophin elaboration by microglia and identification of responsive populations may define novel functions. We now report that microglia/brain macrophages express neurotrophins of the nerve growth factor (NGF) gene famil...

Microglial cells are critical in the pathogenesis of neuropathic pain and several microglial receptors have been proposed to mediate this process. Of these receptors, the P2Y12 receptor is a unique purinergic receptor that is exclusively expressed by microglia in the central nervous system (CNS). In this study, we set forth to investigate the role of P2Y12 receptors in microglial electrophysiol...

The rational of neural stem cells (NSCs) in the therapy of neurological disease is either to replace dead neurons or to improve host neuronal survival, the latter of which has got less attention and the underlying mechanism is as yet little known. Using a transwell co-culture system, we reported that, in organotypic brain slice cultures, NSCs significantly improved host neuronal viability. Inte...

Peripheral and CNS inflammation leads to aberrations in developmental and postnatal neurogenesis, yet little is known about the mechanism linking inflammation to neurogenic abnormalities. Specific miRs regulate peripheral and CNS inflammatory responses. miR-155 is the most significantly upregulated miR in primary murine microglia stimulated with lipopolysaccharide (LPS), a proinflammatory Toll-...

If you have not heard that glial cells are involved in pain processing then you have missed some significant advances in our understanding of the generation and maintenance of pain [3]. It is well established that spinal astrocytes and microglial cells become activated after peripheral nerve injury. The stream of incoming primary afferent activity that accompanies such injury bombards the spina...

Abstract Multiple sclerosis (MS) is an autoimmune demyelinating disease of the central nervous system. MS three times more common in women, yet severe men. The mechanisms underlying these sex differences remain largely unknown. initiated by autoreactive T cells, but CNS-infiltrating myeloid cells are key effector driving pathology. role CNS-resident microglial less clear. We have previously sho...