A2A adenosine receptor may be a key to MS treatment
Posted: Mon Jun 11, 2012 2:12 am
A newly published study from researchers at Cornell University shows how the A2A adenosine receptor expressed on blood-brain barrier cells acts as a gateway, allowing immune cells to enter the brain, where they can cause havoc in people with multiple sclerosis.
A receptor recently discovered to control the movement of immune cells across central nervous system barriers (including the blood-brain barrier) may hold the key to treating multiple sclerosis (MS), a neuroinflammatory disease of the central nervous system.
In MS, immune cells enter the central nervous system and attack and destroy the myelin sheath surrounding the axons of nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord, resulting in blindness, paralysis, incontinence and many more symptoms.
The research, appearing last month online and in print June 1 in the Journal of Immunology, reveals how the A2A adenosine receptor expressed on blood-brain barrier cells acts as a gateway, allowing immune cells to enter the brain, where they can cause havoc in people with MS....Read More - http://www.msrc.co.uk/index.cfm/fuseact ... ageid/1846