News Release

Infiltrating blood-derived macrophages play a role in recovery from spinal cord injury in mice

Peer-Reviewed Publication

PLOS

Although macrophages are known as essential players in wound healing, their contribution to recovery from spinal cord injury is a subject of debate. Using a mouse model of spinal injury, Michal Schwartz and colleagues from the Weizmann institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel tested the effect of macrophages on the recovery process after injury and demonstrate an important anti-inflammatory role for a subset of infiltrating monocyte-derived macrophages that is dependent upon their expression of the anti-inflammatory molecule interleukin-10. These results suggest that this subset of macrophages may have a beneficial effect on spinal cord injuries.

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Funding: MS holds the Maurice and Ilse Katz Professorial Chair in Neuroimmunology. The work was supported in part by the High Q Foundation, an NRSAD award, ERC award, and by IsrALS, given to MS. This work was supported also by the Israel Science Foundation, given to MS and SJ. SJ was supported by the MINERVA Foundation and by a joint ISF Bio-Med research grant, and is the incumbent of the Pauline Recanati Career Development Chair. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.

Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Citation: Shechter R, London A, Varol C, Raposo C, Cusimano M, et al. (2009) Infiltrating Blood-Derived Macrophages Are Vital Cells Playing an Anti-inflammatory Role in Recovery from Spinal Cord Injury in Mice. PLoS Med 6(7): e1000113. doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.1000113

IN YOUR COVERAGE PLEASE USE THIS URL TO PROVIDE ACCESS TO THE FREELY AVAILABLE PAPER: http://medicine.plosjournals.org/perlserv/?request=get-document&doi=1000113

PRESS-ONLY PREVIEW OF THE ARTICLE: http://www.plos.org/press/plme-06-07-schwartz.pdf

EDITORS' SUMMARY: http://www.plos.org/press/plme-06-07-schwartz-summary.pdf

CONTACTS:

Michal Schwartz
Weizmann institute of Science
Neurobiology Dept
Rehovot, 76100
Israel
972-8-9342467
972-8-9346018 (fax)
Michal.Schwartz@weizmann.ac.il


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