New Discovery in "Cell"!

A simple stomach problem can cause a lot of damage

But intestinal infections also have benefits

"What we are describing is an innate memory that persists after the primary infection disappears," said Rockefeller's Daniel Mucida

Causes of neuronal death

The enteric nervous system is called the "second brain" of the body and is the largest pool of neurons and glial cells outside the brain

If enough neurons die, the gastrointestinal tract will lose control

Mucida and his colleagues reported last year that intestinal infections in mice can kill the intestinal neurons of rodents, with catastrophic consequences for intestinal movement

Researchers want to know if the body has some mechanism to prevent neuronal loss after infection

A hypothesis is beginning to take shape

Bacteria and parasites

Postdoctoral fellow Tomasz Ahrends and other laboratory members first infected mice with a non-lethal Salmonella strain, which is a standard source of food poisoning bacteria

Scientists have found that common parasitic infections have similar effects

Mucida discovered that during a primary bacterial infection, neurons will call out to macrophages, and the macrophages will rush to the area to protect their fragile cells from future attacks

At the end of the day, bacterial and parasitic infections can protect intestinal neurons in different ways

Next, Ahrends repeated the experiment on rats in the pet store

An intuition

Mucida now hopes to determine the exact effect of neuron loss on the gastrointestinal tract

"The consequences of neuron loss may be more than we expected," he added
.

Mucida believes that this research will help to understand the underlying causes of irritable bowel syndrome and related diseases more comprehensively
.
"One guess is that the number of enteric neurons in your life is determined by early childhood infections, which prevents you from losing neurons after each subsequent infection," Mucida explained
.

People who do not develop tolerance for some reason may continue to lose enteric neurons in each subsequent infection
.
Future research will explore alternative methods to protect intestinal neurons, which is expected to pave the way for treatment
.

Enteric pathogens induce tissue tolerance and prevent neuronal loss from subsequent infections

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