Cholinergic blockade of neuroinflammation: From tissue to RNA regulators

Tamara Zorbaz, Nimrod Madrer, Hermona Soreq*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

9 Scopus citations

Abstract

Inflammatory stimuli and consequent pro-inflammatory immune responses may facilitate neurodegeneration and threaten survival following pathogen infection or trauma, but potential controllers preventing these risks are incompletely understood. Here, we argue that small RNA regulators of acetylcholine (ACh) signaling, including microRNAs (miRs) and transfer RNA fragments (tRFs) may tilt the balance between innate and adaptive immunity, avoid chronic inflammation and prevent the neuroinflammation-mediated exacerbation of many neurological diseases. While the restrictive permeability of the blood–brain barrier (BBB) protects the brain from peripheral immune events, this barrier can be disrupted by inflammation and is weakened with age. The consequently dysregulated balance between proand anti-inflammatory processes may modify the immune activities of brain microglia, astrocytes, perivascular macrophages, oligodendrocytes and dendritic cells, leading to neuronal damage. Notably, the vagus nerve mediates the peripheral cholinergic anti-inflammatory reflex and underlines the consistent control of body–brain inflammation by pro-inflammatory cytokines, which affect cholinergic functions; therefore, the disruption of this reflex can exacerbate cognitive impairments such as attention deficits and delirium. RNA regulators can contribute to re-balancing the cholinergic network and avoiding its chronic deterioration, and their activities may differ between men and women and/or wear off with age. This can lead to hypersensitivity of aged patients to inflammation and higher risks of neuroinflammation-driven cholinergic impairments such as delirium and dementia following COVID-19 infection. The ageand sex-driven differences in post-transcriptional RNA regulators of cholinergic elements may hence indicate new personalized therapeutic options for neuroinflammatory diseases.

Original languageEnglish
Article numberNS20210035
JournalNeuronal Signaling
Volume6
Issue number1
DOIs
StatePublished - Apr 2022

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 The Author(s). This is an open access article published by Portland Press Limited on behalf of the Biochemical Society and distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0 (CC BY)

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