Project: Innate Immune Activation in Neurodegenerative Disease
The mammalian central nervous system (CNS) is an intricate and fragile structure which on one hand is open to change in order to store information, but at the same time is vulnerable to damage from injury, pathogen invasion or neurodegenerative diseases (NDs). Microglia, representing the brain´s innate immune system, execute a number of physiological functions important for the maintenance of tissue homeostasis, synapse remodelling and neurotrophic factor secretion. In NDs and more particular upon chronic exposure to aberrant proteins or RNA, microglia mount a persistent sterile and proinflammatory immune response and neglect their physiological and beneficial functions. This chronic innate immune activation contributes to disease development and progression. The central aim of the present proposal is to study this innate immune activation by combining a system biological approach and functional analysis of the three most frequent NDs: Alzheimer´s disease (AD), Parkinson´s disease (PD) and Fronto-Temporal-Dementia (FTD), which all have been described to harbour an inflammatory disease component. Microglial and neuronal gene network hubs, modules and checkpoints will be first analyzed on a cellular level using disease relevant immunostimulants. Next, these findings will be replicated using state-of-the-art animal models of AD, PD and FTD. Our goal is to identify shared and overlapping networks and compare those to changes of functional readouts. Importantly, we will valorize
| Acronym | InCure (Reference Number: JPND_CD_FP-688-046) |
| Duration | 01/01/2015 - 01/01/2018 |
| Project Topic | Neurodegenerative disease |
| Website | visit project website |
| Network | JPND |
| Call | A call for European research projects for cross-disease analysis of pathways related to neurodegenerative diseases |
Project partner
| Number | Name | Role | Country |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | University of Bonn | Coordinator | Germany |
| 2 | Università degli Studi di Padova | Partner | Italy |
| 3 | Karolinska Institutet | Partner | Sweden |
| 4 | Institut National de la Santé et de la Recherche Médicale (Inserm) | Partner | France |
| 5 | Technische Universität Braunschweig | Partner | Germany |
| 6 | Vrije Universiteit university medical center | Partner | Netherlands |