Tyrosine kinase SYK (spleen tyrosine kinase), an enzyme involved in immune signaling, could play a key role in Alzheimer's disease (AD), multiple sclerosis (MS), and other neurodegenerative diseases, according to a study from the University of Virginia (UVA). SYK regulates the activity of microglia, preventing the accumulation of secretions associated with AD or MS produced in these pathologies.
As the resident innate immune cells of the brain, microglia are emerging as key drivers of neurological diseases, but as yet there is no systematic way of exploring their potential as drug targets.
Researchers at Stanford University have developed a method to efficiently replace microglia, which are brain-specific immune cells, via a modified bone marrow transplant.
Researchers at Stanford University have developed a method to efficiently replace microglia, which are brain-specific immune cells, via a modified bone marrow transplant.
Antibiotic treatment that changed the lung microbiome affected the activity of microglia, the brain-specific version of macrophages, and could prevent the development of the multiple sclerosis model experimental autoimmune encephalitis in mice.
Vigil Neuroscience Inc. CEO Ivana Magovčević-Liebisch said the just-raised $90 million in series B money will let the company reach “a lot of value-generating milestones,” having been “moving extremely fast” in the year since it was founded.
Single-cell gene studies at Duke-NUS Medical School in Singapore and Monash University in Melbourne, Australia, have shown that gene expression signatures underlie the microglial phagocytosis of beta-amyloid (Abeta) plaque in patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD), the authors reported in the May 20, 2021, edition of Nature Communications.
