Paper Published in PNAS Showing Important Role for Monocytes
In September 2022, Jianya Peng and Chandler Sy from Dr. Mark Siracusa’s lab published a paper in PNAS showing an important role for monocytes in maintaining central nervous system homeostasis following an intestinal parasite challenge. These studies represent an important contribution to the rapidly emerging field of neuroimmunology and suggest that infections occurring at distal sites can dramatically alter the host brain. These findings further showed that a previous infection may make the host less susceptible to subsequent forms of neuroinflammation. Given that neuroinflammation is associated with disorders such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease, this work could inform the development of new therapeutic targets to treat neurogenerative conditions.
