From Bone Marrow to Brain: How Myeloid Cells Can Enter the CNS
Josef Priller Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Germany
Microglia are the primary immune effector cells of the central nervous system (CNS). They originate from primitive erythromyeloid progenitors during emybronic development and populate the entire CNS. Under physiological conditions, they continuously survey their microenvironment and rapidly respond to changes in homeostasis. Dysfunction of microglia is increasingly recognized as a pathogenic event in neurological and psychiatric disorders. Thus, targeting of hematopoietic cells to the CNS by appropriate conditioning, e.g. irradiation or chemotherapy, may represent a treatment option. In fact, the transplantation of wild type bone marrow cells has resulted in improvements in various animal models of neuropsychiatric disorders. However, the mechanisms of CNS engraftment of bone marrow-derived cells are not well understood. Here, we identified a population of hematopoietic progenitors that target to sites of damage in the CNS and alleviate neurodegenerative diseases.
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