Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • NEWS AND VIEWS

Brain inflammatory cascade controlled by gut-derived molecules

Metabolite molecules produced by the gut’s microbes activate immune cells in the brain called microglia, which signal to astrocyte cells to mediate responses to inflammation in the central nervous system.
  1. Hartmut Wekerle

    1. Hartmut Wekerle is at the Max Planck Institute of Neurobiology, D-82152 Martinsried, Germany.

    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed  Google Scholar

Some immunologists regard the central nervous system (CNS) as a no-man’s-land, avoided by immune cells and therefore uninteresting. But, in fact, the CNS has a vigorous immune potential that remains dormant in normal conditions but is awakened after injury. The switch that controls the brain’s immune microenvironment involves non-neuronal cells called glia — not only microglia, which are sometimes called the immune cells of the CNS, but also multifunctional cells called astrocytes1. In a paper in Nature, Rothhammer et al.2 describe how these two glial cell types communicate on a molecular level to influence inflammation in the CNS, and show that this interaction is controlled remotely by microbes that inhabit the gut.

Access options

Rent or buy this article

Prices vary by article type

from$1.95

to$39.95

Learn more

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Nature 557, 642-643 (2018)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-018-05113-0

References

  1. Salter, M. W. & Stevens, B. Nature Med. 23, 1018–1027 (2017).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  2. Rothhammer, V. et al. Nature 557, 724–728 (2018).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  3. Quintana, F. J. et al. Nature 453, 65–71 (2008).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  4. Veldhoen, M. et al. Nature 453, 106–109 (2008).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  5. Okey, A. B., Riddick, D. S. & Harper, P. A. Trends Pharmacol. Sci. 15, 226–232 (1994).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  6. Rothhammer, V. et al. Nature Med. 22, 586–597 (2016).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  7. Liddelow, S. A. et al. Nature 541, 481–487 (2017).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  8. Stockinger, B., Di Meglio, P., Gialitakis, M. & Duarte, J. H. Annu. Rev. Immunol. 32, 403–432 (2014).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  9. Veldhoen, M. & Brucklacher-Waldert, V. Nature Rev. Immunol. 12, 696–708 (2012).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  10. Lassmann, H. & Wekerle, H. in McAlpine’s Multiple Sclerosis 4th edn (eds Compston, A. et al.) 557–600 (Churchill Livingstone, 2006).

    Google Scholar 

  11. Sofroniew, M. V. Neuroscientist 20, 160–172 (2014).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  12. Monaco, M. C. G. & Major, E. O. Front. Immunol. 6, 159 (2015).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  13. Li, Q. & Barres, B. A. Nature Rev. Immunol. 18, 225–242 (2018).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  14. Neumann, H. Glia 36, 191–199 (2001).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  15. Sampson, T. R. & Mazmanian, S. K. Cell Host Microbe 17, 565–576 (2015).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  16. Erny, D. et al. Nature Neurosci. 18, 965–977 (2015).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  17. Riemann-Lorenz, K. et al. PLoS ONE 11, e0165246 (2016).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

Download references

Subjects

Latest on:

Nature Careers

Jobs

  • Technician - Senior Technician in Cell and Molecular Biology

    APPLICATION CLOSING DATE: 24.05.2024 Human Technopole (HT) is a distinguished life science research institute founded and supported by the Italian ...

    Milan (IT)

    Human Technopole

  • Postdoctoral Fellow

    The Dubal Laboratory of Neuroscience and Aging at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) seeks postdoctoral fellows to investigate the ...

    San Francisco, California

    University of California, San Francsico

  • Postdoctoral Associate

    Houston, Texas (US)

    Baylor College of Medicine (BCM)

  • Postdoctoral Research Fellow

    Description Applications are invited for a postdoctoral fellow position at the Lunenfeld-Tanenbaum Research Institute, Sinai Health, to participate...

    Toronto (City), Ontario (CA)

    Sinai Health

  • Postdoctoral Research Associate - Surgery

    Memphis, Tennessee

    St. Jude Children's Research Hospital (St. Jude)

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing

Search

Advanced search

Quick links