[Roles of microglia and immune receptors in Alzheimer's disease]

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a most common neurodegenerative disease. The mechanisms underlying AD, especially late-onset AD, remain elusive. In the past few years, results from genome-wide association studies (GWAS) and systems approaches indicated that innate immune responses mediated by microglia played critical roles in AD. Functional analysis on animal models also showed that immune receptors or proteins expressed in microglia mediated Abeta-induced inflammation, or Abeta phagocytosis by microglia. Microglia plays double sword roles in AD. More work is warranted to elucidate the exact roles of microglia in AD, which will facilitate our better understanding of the mechanisms underlying AD.