Receptors for Interleukins and Tumor Necrosis Factor are Important in Assessing their Roles in CNS Disorders

The immune-to-brain communication is still in its infancy but there is a great deal of data to suggest its importance in several central nervous system (CNS) disorders. There are three cytokines, interleukin-1 (IL-1), IL-6 and tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNFα), which have emerged to have a major role in the CNS and in different CNS disorders. The majority of the published work to date has been on examining changes in the levels of these proteins in the CNS with inflammation; but recent work from our laboratory has shown the receptors for these cytokines may also be an important factor in neuroinflammation mediated CNS disorders, because these receptors are solely localized to neurons and are modified when their ligands levels are elevated. For neuroinflammation and the increase in cytokine levels (either by glia or neurons) to influence neurons and consequently affect the development of CNS disorders, the location of these cytokines receptors on neuronal populations may be the key.