Abstract
Alzheimer disease (AD) is the first progressive neurodegenerative disease worldwide, and the disease is characterized by an accumulation of amyloid in the brain and neurovasculature that triggers cognitive decline and neuroinflammation. The innate immune system has a preponderant role in AD. The last decade, scientists focused their efforts on therapies aiming to modulate innate immunity. The latter is of great interest, since they participate to the inflammation and phagocytose the amyloid in the brain and blood vessels. We and others have developed pharmacological approaches to stimulate these cells using various ligands. These include toll-like receptor 4, macrophage colony stimulating factor, and more recently nucleotide-binding oligomerization domain–containing 2 receptors. This review will discuss the great potential to take advantage of the innate immune system to fight naturally against amyloid β accumulation and prevent its detrimental consequence on brain functions and its vascular system.
Significance Statement The focus on amyloid β removal from the perivascular space rather than targeting CNS plaque formation and clearance represents a new direction with a great potential. Small molecules able to act at the level of peripheral immunity would constitute a novel approach for tackling aberrant central nervous system biology, one of which we believe would have the potential of generating a lot of interest.
Footnotes
- Received May 17, 2021.
- Accepted August 13, 2021.
This work was supported by the Canadian Institutes in Health Research (CIHR) [Grant 143279].
No author has an actual or perceived conflict of interest with the contents of this article.
- Copyright © 2022 by The American Society for Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics
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