#interferon

[willowreader]

Long COVID Looks Like Acute Infection in the Brain

New research finds that patients with Long COVID brain fog or cognitive impairment have the biological signature of acute COVID-19 infection

This analysis made it clear that the difference between those who were improving and those who were not was in the immune system’s interferon-led response to the virus. Interferons are proteins that act like the body’s alarm system against viruses and other harmful invaders. When a virus infects a cell, the cell sends out interferons to warn nearby cells. These nearby cells then prepare to defend themselves, making it harder for the virus to spread. All of these responses produce specific biological signatures that have been determined in various experiments and exist in databases.

This article explains how interferons in our cells can help some people recover from brain fog ir cognitive impairment in Long Covid.

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Reining-in Flaviviruses

Flaviviruses have existed for thousands of years and still hit the headlines, most recently with Zika virus. They can fatally infect the human brain. Your body defends against them by making the protein interferon type I (IFN-I). How IFN-I affects the ability of flaviviruses to infect different cells (tropism), which determines the infection's spread, isn't clear. Researchers investigate by infecting the brains of normal mice and mice genetically altered so they're unresponsive to IFN-I, with the flavivirus, Langat virus. Combining optical projection tomography (OPT) with MRI revealed virus distribution in the brain (pictured). In normal mice (two views left), the virus only infected grey matter in sensory brain areas. In mutants (right), it spread further, infecting white matter. The team revealed the spread into white matter-targeted cells called microglia. Normal mice brains had more IFN-I activity, which protected microglia, uncovering IFN-I's role in viral tropism.

Written by Lux Fatimathas

Image from work by Nunya Chotiwan, Ebba Rosendal and Stefanie M. A. Willekens, and colleagues

Department of Clinical Microbiology, Umeå University, Umeå, Sweden

Image originally published with a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Published in Nature Communications, April 2023

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[the-strongest-stars]

Mapping out interferon production and response for work 😍

[currentsinbiology]

Immune response in body crosses the blood brain barrier. This is very interesting! Exciting article of the day.

Surprising New Link Between Inflammation and Mental Illness

Up to 75 percent of patients with systemic lupus erythematosus — an incurable autoimmune disease commonly known as “lupus” — experience neuropsychiatric symptoms. But so far, our understanding of the mechanisms underlying lupus’ effects on the brain has remained murky.

“In general, lupus patients commonly have a broad range of neuropsychiatric symptoms, including anxiety, depression, headaches, seizures, even psychosis,” says Allison Bialas, PhD, a research fellow working in the lab of Michael Carroll, PhD, of Boston Children’s Hospital. “But their cause has not been clear — for a long time it wasn’t even appreciated that these were symptoms of the disease.”

Perhaps, Bialas thought, changes in the immune systems of lupus patients were directly causing these symptoms from a pathological standpoint. Working with Carroll and other members of his lab, Bialas started out with a simple question, and soon, made a surprising finding – one that points to a potential new drug for protecting the brain from the neuropsychiatric effects of lupus and other diseases. The team has published its findings in Nature.

“Microglia-dependent synapse loss in type I interferon-mediated lupus” by Allison R. Bialas, Jessy Presumey, Abhishek Das, Cees E. van der Poel, Peter H. Lapchak, Luka Mesin, Gabriel Victora, George C. Tsokos, Christian Mawrin, Ronald Herbst & Michael C. Carroll in Nature. Published online June 14 2017 doi:10.1038/nature22821

Interferon-alpha could be detected within the brain (red) and active interferon-alpha receptor signaling (IFNAR) was also observed (green), which is responsible for triggering microglia attack on synapses. NeuroscienceNews.com image is credited to Carroll lab / Boston Children’s Hospital.

[filtrakaipoupoula]

#1 μπήκε ο φάγος στο εξωκυττάριο μαντρίξ #2 περτί μ'αρνί #3 τι λεει ένα βακτήριο με Stockholm syndrome “φαγ’ αμέ”

[interferonmusic]

interferon image edit by sean conner 2017

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Stop Interferon

When we’re ill, the body’s immune system prepares a cocktail of chemicals – some to rally our defences, others to warn our cells. But we may be warning something else too. Researchers looking at mice playing host to Ixodes scapularis ticks (like this one, given artificial fluorescence), found the ticks respond to a specific chemical found in their blood meal. Unusually for a different species, the ticks have a receptor – a protein that 'catches' another chemical – that fits a mammalian chemical called interferon gamma like a glove. The receptor, Dome-1, then triggers a series of changes inside the tick. Researchers find that these cross-species signals help the tick to adapt, grow and feed, but also bolster its immunity, protecting the parasite. While the team investigate such communication across an evolutionary divide, their studies may inspire drugs designed to guide or block these chemical messages.

Written by John Ankers

Image from work by Vipin S. Rana and colleagues, Utpal Pal Lab

Department of Veterinary Medicine, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA

Image copyright held by the original authors

Research published in Science, January 2023

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[bpod-bpod]

Slow and Steady

Just like the quiet, continuous backing of friends and family is the most empowering form of support, sometimes steady treatment is more effective than large single bursts of medicine. Colorectal cancers are particularly deadly when they spread to other parts of the body, which can happen even in patients who have the initial tumour surgically removed. Experiments have tried to reduce this spread by boosting the immune system with interferon alpha – a small protein that helps coordinate the immune system – but found limited success because of the side-effects of a heavy dose. A new study instead supplied a small steady stream of interferon alpha to mice with implanted tumours. Spread to the liver (pictured, cancer cells in green) was reduced as the immune system was better equipped to fend off intruders, and there were minimal side-effects. This approach might ultimately increase the efficacy of tumour removal surgery, keeping cancer away.

Written by Anthony Lewis

Image by Lorena Maria Ferreira and Giovanni Sitia, relating to work by Ngoc Lan Tran, Lorena Maria Ferreira & Blanca Alvarez-Moya et al

Division of Immunology, Transplantation and Infectious Diseases, IRCCS San Raffaele Scientific Institute, Milan, Italy

Image originally published with a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Published in eLife, October 2022

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