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Long believed to be simple, pathogen-eating immune cells, macrophages have a far more extensive list of job duties. They appear to have specialized functions across body tissues, help repair damaged tissue, play a key role in regulating inflammation and pain, and participate in other roles scientists are just beginning to reveal.
Now, a group of researchers in the Netherlands has identified a mechanism by which macrophages may help resolve inflammatory pain in mice. In a study recently posted as a preprint to bioRxiv, they report that the immune cells shuttle mitochondria to sensory neurons that innervate inflamed tissue, and that this helps resolve pain. The researchers speculate that the mechanism could replenish functional mitochondria in neurons during chronic inflammatory conditions, which is associated with dysfunctional mitochondria.
“I think the transfer of mitochondria is quite convincing,” Jan Van den Bossche, an immunologist at Amsterdam University Medical Center ...
