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Neuroimmunology in 2017

The central nervous system: privileged by immune connections

Nature Reviews Immunology volume 18, pages 83–84 (2018)Cite this article

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Over the past few years, interest in the field of neuroimmunology has expanded dramatically, thanks largely to new technologies that have advanced our understanding of the intimate connections between the nervous and immune systems1. Here, we highlight key advances in 2017 that have defined new roles for microglia in brain maintenance, for cytokines as neuromodulators and for the immune system in peripheral nerve activity.

One important recent technological advance that impacts many fields including neuroimmunology is single cell sequencing. In 2017, this approach was used by several groups to study microglia (the brain-resident macrophages), but the results of one such study stand out to us2. The authors of this study characterized microglia from healthy individuals and patients with Alzheimer disease, and identified distinct populations of microglia in disease states. They termed these cells disease-associated microglia (DAM). The transition from healthy microglia to DAM requires TREM2, a gene that is strongly associated with increased risk for Alzheimer disease. During the transition from healthy microglia to DAM, the cells progress through a TREM2 (triggering receptor expressed on myeloid cells 2)-independent intermediate stage; the function of this intermediate phenotype is unclear. Although TREM2 mutations are not associated with brain ageing or with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), the DAM-associated gene expression signature was also found in 'normal' ageing brains and in patients with ALS, suggesting that the presence of DAM is not specific to a particular disease but to an overall state of the brain. Future studies will determine the role of each of the microglia states and their contribution during disease progression.

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Figure 1: Six of the neuroimmunology research areas.

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank A. Impagliazzo for help with the figure.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Jonathan Kipnis is at the Center for Brain Immunology and Glia Department of Neuroscience, Jonathan Kipnis is at the Center for Brain Immunology and Glia, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia 22908, USA.,

    Jonathan Kipnis

  2. Anthony J. Filiano is at the Robertson Clinical and Translational Cell Therapy Program and the Department of Neurosurgery, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina 27710, USA.,

    Anthony J. Filiano

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  1. Jonathan Kipnis
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Correspondence to Jonathan Kipnis.

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Kipnis, J., Filiano, A. The central nervous system: privileged by immune connections. Nat Rev Immunol 18, 83–84 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1038/nri.2017.152

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