When the body mistakenly reacts to an environmental stimulus, the allergic response usually includes some type of inflammation. Interactions between the nervous system and the immune system appear to regulate this process, but scientists still don’t fully understand all of the cell types and mechanisms involved in maintaining a normal or inflamed state in different tissues.
To learn more about how the human body triggers and responds to inflammation, scientists must pull apart the cellular circuits and pathways involved in the immune and nervous systems. Two recent studies led by researchers at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Massachusetts General Hospital, and Brigham and Women’s Hospital have uncovered a new type of molecular crosstalk between these systems, in both the lung and the intestine in mice, in a cellular circuit that suppresses inflammation.
The work adds to the emerging picture of how cells keep inflammation in check when they encounter environmental triggers. Figuring out which cell types and molecules interact to maintain healthy cell states or cause inflammation to spiral out of control could someday help drug developers discover new treatments for allergies. The two papers appeared in the journal Immunity and were funded in part by the Food Allergy Science Initiative (FASI) at the Broad Institute.
