04. February 2025

Reducing Neuroinflammation Could Help Fight Alzheimer’s Reducing Neuroinflammation Could Help Fight Alzheimer’s

Alzheimer’s disease is the most common cause of dementia. A promising approach for its treatment is the prevention of inflammatory processes in the brain. An international team of scientists around Dr. Róisín McManus, Prof. Eicke Latz and Prof. Michael Heneka now provide new evidence supporting this approach and potentially contributing to the development of more effective therapies. The results have now been published in the journal “Immunity”.

Alzheimer’s disease is associated with the deposition of a protein called amyloid-beta in the brain. The aggregation of this protein gives rise to a chain of events, that ultimately harm neurons and lead to their loss. “Alzheimer’s disease involves a complex interaction of different mechanisms. One of these is neuroinflammation. That’s what we looked at in our studies. Specifically, we pharmacologically manipulated a molecular complex called the NLRP3 inflammasome. It is found in microglia, which are the immune cells of the brain,” says ImmunoSensation2 member Dr. Róisín McManus, research group leader at the Bonn DZNE and investigator at UKB’s Institute of Innate Immunity.

Previously unknown pathways

The NLRP3 inflammasome is like a control switch: In Alzheimer’s disease, its activation triggers an inflammatory response that harms neurons. For this reason, researchers have been exploring ways to inactivate the NLRP3 inflammasome using drugs. The current results support this approach. “It is known that inhibiting NLRP3 not only reduces neuroinflammation, but also helps microglia clear the harmful amyloid-beta deposits, a process called phagocytosis. The novelty of our findings is that they provide...

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The authors thank the  Flow Cytometry Core Facility at the Medical Faculty for advice

Róisín McManus et al. NLRP3-mediated glutaminolysis controls microglial phagocytosis to promote Alzheimer’s disease progression. Immunity (2025). DOI: 10.1016/j.immuni.2025.01.007

Dr. Róisín McManus

Translational Neuroimmunology (DZNE)

Venusberg-Campus 1, 53127 Bonn

Mail: Roisin.McManus@dzne.de 

Phone: +49 228 43302342

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