APRIL 23, 2020 BY INES MARTINS, PHD
Click HERE to Subscribe for the MS Beacon Newsletter
A subset of monocytes (a type of immune cells) that can infiltrate the central nervous system and drive nerve cell damage in multiple sclerosis (MS) may be a better target for preventing disease progression than the cells of the immune system that are currently targeted with MS therapies, a study in mice suggests.
Current MS treatments designed to dampen immune reactions against myelin — the protective coating of nerve cells that is lost in MS — are known to put patients at higher risk of infections. But researchers found that depleting this newly identified monocyte subset can reduce clinical signs of MS without affecting immune cells that fight off infections.
The study, “Cxcl10+ monocytes define a pathogenic subset in the central nervous system during autoimmune neuroinflammation,” was published in the journal Nature Immunology.
The immune system plays a critical role in MS onset and progression. In patients, immune cells travel from the blood into the brain, where they wrongly attack the myelin sheath that covers neurons, and initiate a set of inflammatory reactions that eventually cause nerve cells to die.
Immune B-cells and T-cells are seen as the major drivers of this inflammation, and most MS therapies are meant to target and eliminate these immune cells. But such approaches are not without side effects, as they also deplete patients from memory immune cells needed to fight foreign threats.
“Up until now, MS drugs have essentially targeted these T and B cells, both of which are part of the acquired immune system,” Alexander Mildner, the study’s co-senior author, said in a press release. Mildner is a scientist at the Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine, Germany.
“But by attacking the acquired immune system, the MS drugs adversely affect the body’s immune memory, thus making patients more susceptible to infections in the long run,” Mildner said.
Knowing this, Mildner has been focusing on another subset of immune cells that is believed to also play a major part in MS progression: a subset of monocytes that produce the CCR2 protein.
“In an earlier study with a mouse model of MS, we were able to show that disease symptoms in the mice declined significantly within a few days after their monocytes were selectively destroyed by antibodies [against CCR2],” said Mildner. “Apparently, it is not only T and B cells that are involved in causing tissue damage in MS.”
Monocytes are immune cells that travel in the blood before migrating into tissues, where they can fight threats by engulfing them.
In MS, these cells also can participate in the process of inflammation by “eating” pieces of the central nervous system (CNS). But exactly what subsets of monocytes are entering the CNS and causing disease is largely unknown.
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
Please subscribe to the:
MS Learning Channel on @YouTube
Click Red Box on banner to opt-in
…………………………………………………………………………
This article is posted and shared by: #MSViewsandNews
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
Visit our MS Learning Channel on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/msviewsandnews