Class I MHC & neuroplasticity - a novel role for a classical immune molecule

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Central to the body's defence system is the immune response, triggered in response to pathogens including bacteria, parasites, and viruses. Key molecules in the immune system, including class I major histocompatability (MHC), have been well studied and are known to be an important component of the body's basic defenses to pathogens. Recently, we have learned that the brain also responds to infection and pathogens and mounts its own immune response. This response is beneficial and protective, as is the body's immune response. The same molecules that were originally described in the body's immune system have now been identified in the brain and are important to the brain's immune response. For a long time, we thought that the brain was protected from the immune system, but in fact, not only are immune molecules produced in the brain during the brain's immune response, some of these molecules are present in the brain at all times. We are learning that these molecules may play important roles in how we think and learn. The classical immune molecule, class I MHC, is one of these molecules and is the focus of this proposal. We hope to understand whether brain cells have unique ways of controlling the presence of these molecules and whether they contribute to the way nerve cells talk to each other.