Are microglia the ultimate culprit?

[frodo]

MS lesions develop in the so-called normal appearing areas (NAWM). Pre-active lesions start developing before the blood-brain barrier (BBB) breakdown and not have still any kind of T-cell or B-cell attack. The study of these NAWM areas shows that the resident immune cells of the brain, called microglia, are the ones that cause the pre-active lesions.

A problem with the study of microglia is that they look the same than macrophages, a similar cell that comes from the blood stream. Now it has been notice demonstrated that on average 45% of the macrophage-like cells in active lesions were derived from the resident microglia pool. It also seems that they come before the BBB breakdown, and therefore they are the main suspects of starting the lesion evolution.

Loss of ‘homeostatic’ microglia and patterns of their activation in active multiple sclerosis

Source: https://academic.oup.com/brain/article/ ... 00/3852560

Quote: Analysis of TMEM119, which is expressed on microglia but not on recruited macrophages, demonstrated that on average 45% of the macrophage-like cells in active lesions were derived from the resident microglia pool. Our study demonstrates the loss of the homeostatic microglial signature in active multiple sclerosis with restoration associated with disease inactivity.

Quote2: Overall, in the normal white matter of controls, microglia showed an intermediate phenotype between a homeostatic and pro-inflammatory state (Microglia in normal white matter of controls have a pre-activated phenotype).

[jimmylegs]

multifactorial thing, ms, imho. can't be nailed down to one smoking gun.

[frodo]

multifactorial thing, ms, imho. can't be nailed down to one smoking gun.

Are we really sure that it is multifactorial? We really do not know too much to be sure of anything.