gms | German Medical Science

60th Annual Meeting of the German Society for Neuropathology and Neuroanatomy (DGNN)

German Society for Neuropathology and Neuroanatomy

26. - 28.08.2015, Berlin

Autophagy modulates the inflammatory response of microglia

Meeting Abstract

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  • corresponding author presenting/speaker Marina Jendrach - Neuropathology, Charite Berlin, Berlin, Germany
  • Frank L. Heppner - Neuropathology, Charite Berlin, Berlin, Germany

Deutsche Gesellschaft für Neuropathologie und Neuroanatomie. 60th Annual Meeting of the German Society for Neuropathology and Neuroanatomy (DGNN). Berlin, 26.-28.08.2015. Düsseldorf: German Medical Science GMS Publishing House; 2015. Doc15dgnnP20

doi: 10.3205/15dgnn44, urn:nbn:de:0183-15dgnn447

Published: August 25, 2015

© 2015 Jendrach et al.
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License. See license information at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.


Outline

Text

Microglia, the resident immune cells of the central nervous system, are activated in response to a variety of stimuli and diseases including infections or cell death, resulting in the secretion of various cytokines and other (soluble) mediators. Chronic activation of microglia is hypothesized to contribute to neurodegenerative disorders. Importantly, autophagy presents one of the major quality control mechanisms of the cell by degrading and removing damaged organelles and various proteins. Loss of the autophagic protein ATG16L1 results in increased proinflammatory cytokine production of macrophages in response to stress and is associated with Crohn’s disease [1]. This finding points to a role of autophagy in the regulation of inflammation and has directed us to determine the impact of autophagy on neuroinflammation. Consequently, we investigated if and how modulation of autophagy in microglia influences their production and secretion of cytokines. Primary murine microglia were activated in the presence of various inducers and inhibitors of autophagy and their status was monitored and assessed by analysis of cell morphology and cytokine production. Based on these data the underlying mechanisms were elucidated. Taken together, our data present a detailed study on the importance of autophagy for microglia modulation and activation.


References

1.
Murthy A, Li Y, Peng I, Reichelt M, Katakam AK, Noubade R, Roose-Girma M, DeVoss J, Diehl L, Graham RR, van Lookeren Campagne M. A Crohn’s disease variant in Atg16l1 enhances its degradation by caspase 3. Nature. 2014 Feb 27;506(7489):456-62. DOI: 10.1038/nature13044 External link