One of the biggest paradoxes in brain disease and traumatic brain injury is that neurons will die even as their support cells, like microglia, remain healthy. Not only do the microglia remain healthy, they also recruit the body's immune system, which serves to damage other neurons. Scientists at King's College London have identified a protein secreted by the microglia that activates the innate immune system. The researchers found that microglia secrete a histone protein in a new study published in the F1000 Research. Histones normally help package DNA in the nucleus of the cell and weren't thought to have inflammatory properties until now. The histone also attracts more microglia to the site of the injury. These microglia aren't like normal cells (pictured, Type 1), they have significant pro-inflammatory activity (Type 2), which serves to increase both the inflammatory response and the damage to neurons. Blocking the activity of the secreted histone may be a new way to treat neurological disease and brain injury.
Source: http://f1000.com/resources/F1000Research_NeuroscienceArticle_PR.pdf
I wonder if this activity is an attempt by the body to stop some sort of brain parasite or tumor growth, that's now doing damage rather than helping.
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ReplyDeleteIt might be easier than expected. Probably microglia is the first damage sensor of the nervous system. When injury occurs to the neurons cells they might act stimulating the increase of pro inflammatory mediators just to promote the fixing of the damage. If the damage is fixable so the neurons will be repaired, if they do not so they will die ... Histone 1 protein itself might be just a sensor of the correct assembling of the DNA into the cells. So the more the cells are sick the better histone 1is accumulated driving the microglia aggregation with a consequent loop into inflammatory responses ...
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