AD/PD 2022 | How can the gut microbiome modulate the peripheral and brain immune systems?

The role of inflammasome has been receiving a lot of attention in the last… I would say in the last two, three years and particularly, since an incept and initiation investigation about inflammasome that initiated about five, six years ago, we made a lot of progress. In particular, try to identify novel mechanism that allow to identify potential therapeutic intervention.

What is the inflammasome? Inflammasome is nothing else that what can be defined as the mediator of a native immune response in the brain. It’s been very well characterized and it appears to have novel aspects that may be associated to the precipitation of certain neurodegenerative disorder. Both innate immune disease, and as well as, also other neurodegenerative disorder like ALS and in particular in these last days for a potential therapeutic intervention, Parkinson’s disease. And the reason, as eventually we can discuss even further, is because there is quite a bit of nice new science supporting the hypothesis that we might eventually link some mechanism associated with inflammasome with what do we call the gut-brain access that is influenced by the microbiome and potential microbiota, and this new science is opening new therapeutic approaches as well.

Inflammasome and gut-brain cross-talking with the periphery is most likely one of the highest topics in understanding the future of the therapeutics, I would say, in several neurodegenerative diseases. In particular, the mechanism associated with the role of the peripheral immune system and the peripheral immune system that is highly connected with the gut immune system. And it is becoming very apparent that the maintenance of a good microbiome, basically a good ecosystem of bacteria in our intestine, are important for the maintenance of a good immune-inflammatory activity in the circulation. There are a lot of cross-talking eventually through the immune system and probably the gut with the brain, through the mechanism that may be related to the inflammasome activation.

So, the gut may influence the balance of two main systems that are called T regulatory cells. They are also known very well because also see them with autoimmune disorders, like multiple sclerosis, and if indeed the gut is capable to interfere with some peripheral immune system, and then if the peripheral immune system is cross-talking with the inflammasome in the brain, we have a great opportunity to try to better understand how in some way, the peripheral immune system can talk to the brain. Eventually, having a global perspective of the global health in neurodegeneration, and not only just what is happening in the brain, but also what might eventually happen. In the periphery they can promote something that is happening in the brain and develop new drugs as this is one of the most interesting kind of things that maybe can take care of inflammasome mediator responses that are initiated in the guts with drug discovery for inflammasome in the brain – when indeed the ecosystem of the bacteria in our intestine, is what is initiating almost everything in terms of the cascade of the inflammation in the brain.