The membranes surrounding our brains are in a never-ending battle against deadly infections, as germs constantly try to elude watchful immune cells and sneak past a special protective barrier called the meninges. In a study involving mice and human autopsy tissue, researchers at the National Institutes of Health and Cambridge University have shown that some of these immune cells are trained to fight these infections by first spending time in the gut.
Future work in the McGavern lab will focus on mechanisms that allow for continual education and re-education of IgA cells in the meninges.
This study was supported by the NINDS Intramural Research Program, the Intramural Research Program of the National Institute of Allergy Infectious Diseases (NIAID), the National Institute of Health Research (United Kingdom), the Medical Research Council (United Kingdom), the Chan-Zuckerberg Initiative, and the Versus Arthritis Cure Challenge.
Read more at: https://neurosciencenews.com/gut-immune-brain-17249/