Evidence of Long-range nerve pathways connecting and coordinating activity in secondary lymph organs
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Bioelectronic Medicine
RESEARCH ARTICLE
Open Access
Evidence of Long-range nerve pathways connecting and coordinating activity in secondary lymph organs Victoria Cotero1, Tzu-Jen Kao1, John Graf1, Jeffrey Ashe1, Christine Morton1, Sangeeta S. Chavan2, Stavros Zanos2, Kevin J. Tracey2 and Christopher M. Puleo1*
Abstract Background: Peripheral nerve reflexes enable organ systems to maintain long-term physiological homeostasis while responding to rapidly changing environmental conditions. Electrical nerve stimulation is commonly used to activate these reflexes and modulate organ function, giving rise to an emerging class of therapeutics called bioelectronic medicines. Dogma maintains that immune cell migration to and from organs is mediated by inflammatory signals (i.e. cytokines or pathogen associated signaling molecules). However, nerve reflexes that regulate immune function have only recently been elucidated, and stimulation of these reflexes for therapeutic effect has not been fully investigated. Methods: We utilized both electrical and ultrasound-based nerve stimulation to activate nerve pathways projecting to specific lymph nodes. Tissue and cell analysis of the stimulated lymph node, distal lymph nodes and immune organs is then utilized to measure the stimulation-induced changes in neurotransmitter/neuropeptide concentrations and immune cellularity in each of these sites. Results and conclusions: In this report, we demonstrate that activation of nerves and stimulated release of neurotransmitters within a local lymph node results in transient retention of immune cells (e.g. lymphocytes and neutrophils) at that location. Furthermore, such stimulation results in transient changes in neurotransmitter concentrations at distal organs of the immune system, spleen and liver, and mobilization of immune cells into the circulation. This report will enable future studies in which stimulation of these long-range nerve connections between lymphatic and immune organs can be applied for clinical purpose, including therapeutic modulation of cellularity during vaccination, active allergic response, or active auto-immune disease. Keywords: Neuromodulation, Bioelectronic medicine, Immunology, Neuroscience, Neural immune reflexes, Biomedical engineering
Introduction In recent years, several nerve reflexes have been described that modulate the function of the immune system. These include the vagus nerve-mediated antiinflammatory reflex, that alters cytokine release from macrophages (Chavan & T., 2017; Wang et al., 2002; Gunasekaran et al., 2018; Tracey, 2009; Tracey, 2016; * Correspondence: [email protected] 1 General Electric Research, Niskayuna, NY, USA Full list of author information is available at the end of the article
Borovikova et al., 2000) and modulates circulating neutrophil activity (Huston et al., 2009), adrenal reflexes that modulate systemic inflammation via epinephrine, glucocorticoids, or dopamine (Torres-Rosas, 2014; Cain & Cidlowski, 2017; Mracsko et al., 2014), a central nervous system (CNS) associated reflex th
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