Dr. Wenwen Zeng and colleagues have recently reported their findings revealing intrinsic immune response to traumatic injuries in neurons, entitled "Sarm1/Myd88-5 Regulates Neuronal Intrinsic Immune Response to Traumatic Axonal Injuries" on Cell Reports in April 17, 2018.

Traumatic injuries can trigger inflammatory reactions leading to profound neuropathological consequences. However, the immune capacity of neurons, distinct from that of immune cells or glial cells, in response to traumatic insults remains to be fully characterized. In this study, Zeng and colleagues demonstrate that neurons can cell-autonomously detect distant axonal damages, resulting in rapid production of a specific collection of cytokines and chemokines. Importantly, this neuronal immune response appears spatially and temporally separated from injury-induced axon degeneration. They then identify through the genetic screen that this immune response is regulated by TIR-domain adaptor Sarm1/Myd88-5. Sarm1 functions through the downstream Jnk - cJun signal, and blockage of this Sarm1-Jnk-cJun pathway effectively abolishes the recruitment of immune cells to injury-afflicted neural tissues. Those findings therefore uncover the key function of Sarm1 signaling pathway, independent of its known role in axon degeneration, in the neuronal intrinsic immune response to traumatic axonal injuries.

Link to the original paper:

http://www.cell.com/cell-reports/fulltext/S2211-1247(18)30432-7