TY  - JOUR
A1  - Diesselberg, Catharina
A1  - Ribes, Sandra
A1  - Seele, Jana
A1  - Kaufmann, Annika
A1  - Redlich, Sandra
A1  - Bunkowski, Stephanie
A1  - Hanisch, Uwe-Karsten
A1  - Michel, Uwe
A1  - Nau, Roland
A1  - Schütze, Sandra
T1  - Activin A increases phagocytosis of Escherichia coli K1 by primary murine microglial cells activated by toll-like receptor agonists
T2  - Journal of neuroinflammation
N2  - Background: Bacterial meningitis is associated with high mortality and long-term neurological sequelae. Increasing the phagocytic activity of microglia could improve the resistance of the CNS against infections. We studied the influence of activin A, a member of the TGF-β family with known immunoregulatory and neuroprotective effects, on the functions of microglial cells in vitro.
Methods: Primary murine microglial cells were treated with activin A (0.13 ng/ml–13 μg/ml) alone or in combination with agonists of TLR2, 4, and 9. Phagocytosis of Escherichia coli K1 as well as release of TNF-α, IL-6, CXCL1, and NO was assessed.
Results: Activin A dose-dependently enhanced the phagocytosis of Escherichia coli K1 by microglial cells activated by agonists of TLR2, 4, and 9 without further increasing NO and proinflammatory cytokine release. Cell viability of microglial cells was not affected by activin A.
Conclusions: Priming of microglial cells with activin A could increase the elimination of bacteria in bacterial CNS infections. This preventive strategy could improve the resistance of the brain to infections, particularly in elderly and immunocompromised patients.
KW  - Bacterial meningitis
KW  - Activin
KW  - Proinflammatory cytokines
KW  - TLR
KW  - Innate immune system
KW  - Nitric oxide
KW  - CNS infection
KW  - Phagocytosis
KW  - E. coli
Y1  - 2018
UR  - http://publikationen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/46605
UR  - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:hebis:30:3-466054
SN  - 1742-2094
N1  - Open Access: This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.
VL  - 15
IS  - 1, Art. 175
SP  - 1
EP  - 11
PB  - BioMed Central
CY  - London
ER  -