Neural Inhibition of Dopaminergic Signaling Enhances Immunity in a Cell-Non-autonomous Manner.

ABSTRACT: The innate immune system is the front line of host defense against microbial infections, but its rapid and uncontrolled activation elicits microbicidal mechanisms that have deleterious effects [1, 2]. Increasing evidence indicates that the metazoan nervous system, which responds to stimuli originating from both the internal and the external environment, functions as a modulatory apparatus that controls not only microbial killing pathways but also cellular homeostatic mechanisms [3-5]. Here we report that dopamine signaling controls innate immune responses through a D1-like dopamine receptor, DOP-4, in Caenorhabditis elegans. Chlorpromazine inhibition of DOP-4 in the nervous system activates a microbicidal PMK-1/p38 mitogen-activated protein kinase signaling pathway that enhances host resis

SUBMITTER: Cao X 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5021569 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature