Combating fatigue in chronic inflammation
In this project they investigate the biological mechanisms contributing to the severe chronic fatigue in inflammatory diseases by combining clinical and scientific expertise of the Amsterdam UMC with expert analysis and pharmaceutical insight provided by GlaxoSmithKline.
Extreme fatigue is a common feature of many chronic inflammatory disorders such as inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). Even after successful treatment of the intestinal disease, up to 40% of IBD patients still experience excessive tiredness which impairs both their ability to work and their social interactions. In fact, patients report fatigue as the number one factor reducing their overall quality of life. Unfortunately, as little is known about the biology leading to this fatigue, no therapeutic options are available.
It is known that macrophages, a particular type of immune cell present in most tissues, are altered in the intestine of IBD patients. It was also known that macrophages in the brain are involved in the general malaise felt during acute infectious diseases, including the associated fatigue. They therefore hypothesised this cell type is also altered in the brain during chronic inflammatory processes elsewhere in the body. This project aimed to characterise these alterations in preclinical models of IBD in order to find new therapeutic targets.
The results of this project showed that although the brain is not clearly inflamed during intestinal inflammation, local brain macrophages are indeed altered. Targeting specifically these alterations could be important in the search for therapeutic options for fatigue.
