15:20 - 16:50
Room: ANA Crowne Plaza “Ohtori” Room B
Workshop Session
Chair/s:
Ann Chen, Masaaki Murakami
Brain micro-inflammation at specific vessels establishes a new neural circuit, which dysregulates the gastrointestinal homeostasis under stress conditions
Yasunobu Arima1, Takuto Ohki1, Naoki Nishikawa1, Kotaro Higuchi1, Junko Nio-Kobayashi2, Stofkova Andrea1, Toshihiko Iwanaga2, Marco Prinz3, Daisuke Kamimura1, Masaaki Murakami1
1Division of Molecular Neuroimmunology, Institute for Genetic Medicine and Graduate School of Medicine, Hokkaido University, Sapporo, Japan, 2Department of Anatomy, Graduate School of Medicine, Hokkaido University, Sapporo, Japan, 3Institute of Neuropathology, Faculty of Medicine, University of Freiburg, and BIOSS Centre for Biological Signalling Studies, University of Freiburg, Freiburg, Germany

It is well known that chronic stresses exacerbate illness. However, the molecular mechanism remains poorly understood. Here, we show one of the underlying molecular mechanisms using an adoptive transfer system of experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis (EAE), a mouse model of multiple sclerosis. In general, EAE mice develop tail and hind limb paralysis, but the symptom is not lethal. Under a chronic stress condition, however, EAE mice showed high mortality, associated with severe gastrointestinal failure. Interestingly, while donor pathogenic CD4+ T cells specific for a myelin antigen accumulated at the fifth lumbar spinal cord under a normal condition, the stress condition directed them to invade at the specific vessels of boundary area of the third ventricle, thalamus, and dentate gyrus to establish brain micro-inflammation. Importantly, instead of EAE induction, a direct cytokine injection to induce brain micro-inflammation at specific vessels was sufficient to establish severe gastrointestinal failure in mice with stress. Resulting brain micro-inflammation activated the specific neural pathway including the paraventricular nucleus (PVN), dorsomedial nucleus of hypothalamus (DMH), and vagal neurons to cause severe gastrointestinal failure. Suppression of the brain micro-inflammation or blockage of the neural pathway inhibited the gastrointestinal failure and improved mortality. These results showed a direct link between brain micro-inflammation and gastrointestinal homeostasis via a specific neural pathway under stress. We therefore suggest that brain micro-inflammation(s) could act as a switch to activate the new neural pathway(s) to regulate organ homeostasis.


Reference:
Tu-WS10-11
Session:
Workshop 10, “Cytokines in autoimmune diseases”
Presenter/s:
Yasunobu Arima
Presentation type:
Oral Presentation
Room:
ANA Crowne Plaza “Ohtori” Room B
Chair/s:
Ann Chen, Masaaki Murakami
Date:
Tuesday, 31 October 2017
Time:
16:42 - 16:50
Session times:
15:20 - 16:50