Central Nervous System Remyelination: Roles of Glia and Innate Immune Cells

Charbel S Baaklini; Khalil S Rawji; Greg J Duncan; Madelene F S Ho; Jason R Plemel

doi:10.3389/fnmol.2019.00225

Central Nervous System Remyelination: Roles of Glia and Innate Immune Cells

Front Mol Neurosci. 2019 Sep 19:12:225. doi: 10.3389/fnmol.2019.00225. eCollection 2019.

Authors

Charbel S Baaklini¹, Khalil S Rawji², Greg J Duncan³, Madelene F S Ho¹, Jason R Plemel^{1

2

3}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Medicine, Division of Neurology, Neuroscience and Mental Health Institute, Faculty of Medicine & Dentistry, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, Canada.
² Wellcome Trust-Medical Research Council, Cambridge Stem Cell Institute, Cambridge Biomedical Campus, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, United Kingdom.
³ Department of Neurology, Jungers Center for Neurosciences Research, Oregon Health and Science University, Portland, OR, United States.

Abstract

In diseases such as multiple sclerosis (MS), inflammation can injure the myelin sheath that surrounds axons, a process known as demyelination. The spontaneous regeneration of myelin, called remyelination, is associated with restoration of function and prevention of axonal degeneration. Boosting remyelination with therapeutic intervention is a promising new approach that is currently being tested in several clinical trials. The endogenous regulation of remyelination is highly dependent on the immune response. In this review article, we highlight the cell biology of remyelination and its regulation by innate immune cells. For the purpose of this review, we discuss the roles of microglia, and also astrocytes and oligodendrocyte progenitor cells (OPCs) as they are being increasingly recognized to have immune cell functions.

Keywords: aging; astrocytes; microglia; oligodendrocyte; oligodendrocyte progenitor cells; remyelination; white matter disease.