All Stories
Follow
Subscribe to Technische Universität München

Technische Universität München

Messengers from gut to brain

TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY OF MUNICHCorporate Communications Center

phone: +49 89 289 22562 - email: presse@tum.de - web: www.tum.de

This text on the web: https://www.tum.de/en/about-tum/news/press-releases/details/36901

High resolution images: https://mediatum.ub.tum.de/1622134

NEWS RELEASE

Messengers from gut to brain

Seen for the first time: T cells traveling from the gut and skin to the central nervous system

Scientists have long been aware of a link between the gut microbiome and the central nervous system (CNS). Until now, however, the immune cells that move from the gut into the CNS and thus the brain had not been identified. A team of researchers in Munich has now succeeded in using violet light to make these migrating T cells visible for the first time. This opens up avenues for developing new treatment options for diseases such as multiple sclerosis (MS) and cancer.

The link between the gut microbiome and the CNS, known as the gut/brain axis (GBA), is believed to be responsible for many things: a person’s body weight, autoimmune diseases, depression, mental illnesses and Alzheimer’s disease. Researchers at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) and LMU University Hospital Munich have now succeeded in making this connection visible for the first time. This is cause for hope – for those suffering from MS, for example. It may offer ways to adapt treatments, and T cells could perhaps be modified before reaching the brain.

Immune cell migration in MS

The immune system is affected by environmental factors – also in the central nervous system in case of MS patients. This autoimmune disease is subject to repeated flare-ups, experienced by patients as the improvement or worsening of their condition. T cells collect information and, in MS patients, carry it to the central nervous system (in the brain or spinal cord) where an immune response is triggered. Until now, however, it was long uncertain how and from where the T cells were traveling to the CNS.

Using violet light to track marked T cells

The team working with Thomas Korn, a professor of experimental neuroimmunology at TUM, has developed a method for marking immune cells in mice using photoconvertible proteins. The T cells can then be made visible with violet light. The researchers successfully tested this method with the mouse model in lymph nodes, both in the gut and the skin. They were able to track the movement of the T cells from those locations into the central nervous systems.

Characteristics of T cells reveal their origin

T cells from the skin migrated into the gray and white matter of the CNS, while almost all T cells from the gut ended up in the white matter. For T cells in the brain, it was still possible to determine their origin. “What makes these insights so important is that they demonstrate for the first time that environmental influences impact the T cells in lymph nodes in the gut and the skin, which then carry this information into the distant organs,” says Prof. Thomas Korn. “The characteristics of the T cells are sufficiently stable for us to determine whether immune responses are influenced by skin or gut T cells,” adds LMU researcher Dr. Eduardo Beltrán, who performed the bioinformatic analyses in this study.

Starting point for future treatments

An important insight for MS patients: “If gut or skin cells were known to be the cause, the T cells could be treated at the source of the disease and predictions could be made on the progress of the chronic inflammation and autoimmune condition,” says first author Michael Hiltensperger. The results of the study could also mean a breakthrough for research on other autoimmune diseases or cancer.

Publication:

Hiltensperger, M., Beltrán, E., Kant, R. et al.

Skin and gut imprinted helper T cell subsets exhibit distinct functional phenotypes in central nervous system autoimmunity. Nature Immunology 22, 880–892 (2021).

DOI: 10.1038/s41590-021-00948-8

High-resolution images: https://mediatum.ub.tum.de/1622134

Contact:

Univ.-Prof. Dr. Thomas Korn

Klinikum rechts der Isar

of the Technical University of Munich

Director of Experimental Neuroimmunology

Tel.: +49 (0) 89-4140-5617

Tel. +49 (0) 89-4140-4606 (Office)

e-mail: thomas.korn@tum.de

The Technical University of Munich (TUM) is one of Europe's leading research universities, with around 600 professors, 43,000 students, and 10,000 academic and non-academic staff. Its focus areas are the engineering sciences, natural sciences, life sciences and medicine, combined with economic and social sciences. TUM acts as an entrepreneurial university that promotes talents and creates value for society. In that it profits from having strong partners in science and industry. It is represented worldwide with the TUM Asia campus in Singapore as well as offices in Beijing, Brussels, Cairo, Mumbai, San Francisco, and São Paulo. Nobel Prize winners and inventors such as Rudolf Diesel, Carl von Linde, and Rudolf Mößbauer have done research at TUM. In 2006, 2012, and 2019 it won recognition as a German "Excellence University." In international rankings, TUM regularly places among the best universities in Germany.

More stories: Technische Universität München
More stories: Technische Universität München
  • 01.09.2021 – 17:15

    Deadwood in the global carbon cycle - The importance of insects in the decomposition of wood

    Corporate Communications Center phone: +49 8161 5403 - email: presse@tum.de - web: www.tum.de This text on the web: https://www.tum.de/en/about-tum/news/press-releases/details/36878 High resolution images: https://mediatum.ub.tum.de/1621313 NEWS RELEASE Deadwood in the global carbon cycle The importance of insects in the decomposition of wood The speed at which ...

  • 18.08.2021 – 13:55

    New approach identifies T cells in Covid-19 patients

    TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY OF MUNICH Corporate Communications Center phone: +49 89 289 22562 - email: presse@tum.de - web: www.tum.de This text on the web: https://www.tum.de/nc/en/about-tum/news/press-releases/details/36882/ NEWS RELEASE New approach identifies T cells in Covid-19 patients Immune cell profile reveals appearance, number and activity level against SARS-CoV-2 T cells play a decisive role in fighting the ...

  • 17.08.2021 – 13:32

    From self-interest to the social enterprise

    TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY OF MUNICH Corporate Communications Center phone: +49 89 289 22798 - email: presse@tum.de - web: www.tum.de This text on the web: https://www.tum.de/nc/en/about-tum/news/press-releases/details/36871/ Images: https://mediatum.ub.tum.de/1620218 NEWS RELEASE From self-interest to the social enterprise Study reveals motives driving entrepreneurs Not all entrepreneurs who found social enterprises are ...