T cells promote the regeneration of neural precursor cells in the hippocampus of Alzheimer’s disease mice

Jing Liu; Yuxin Ma; Sumin Tian; Li Zhang; Mengmeng Zhao; Yaqiong Zhang; Dachuan Xu

doi:10.4103/1673-5374.139481

摘要：Alzheimer’s disease is closely associated with disorders of neurogenesis in the brain, and growing evidence supports the involvement of immunological mechanisms in the development of the disease. However, at present, the role of T cells in neuronal regeneration in the brain is unknown. We injected amyloid-beta 1-42 peptide into the hippocampus of six BALB/c wild-type mice and six BALB/c-nude mice with T-cell immunodeifciency to establish an animal model of Alzhei-mer’s disease. A further six mice of each genotype were injected with same volume of normal saline. Immunohistochemistry revealed that the number of regenerated neural progenitor cells in the hippocampus of BALB/c wild-type mice was signiifcantly higher than that in BALB/c-nude mice. Quantitative fluorescence PCR assay showed that the expression levels of peripheral T cell-associated cytokines (interleukin-2, interferon-γ) and hippocampal microglia-related cyto-kines (interleukin-1β, tumor necrosis factor-α) correlated with the number of regenerated neural progenitor cells in the hippocampus. hTese results indicate that T cells promote hippocampal neurogenesis in Alzheimer’s disease and T-cell immunodeifciency restricts neuronal regeneration in the hippocampus. The mechanism underlying the promotion of neuronal regeneration by T cells is mediated by an increased expression of peripheral T cells and central microglial cytokines in Alzheimer’s disease mice. Our ifndings provide an experimental basis for understanding the role of T cells in Alzheimer’s disease.