It is critical to monitor inflammation in multiple sclerosis (MS) patients for prognostication and optimization of treatment. In current clinical practice, inflammation is inferred from accumulation of gadolinium (Gd) in acute lesions where the blood brain barrier is disrupted. However, the substantial and long-lasting microglial inflammation in established lesions occurring behind an intact blood brain barrier cannot be detected with conventional MRI. In this proposal we will address this unmet need by exploring the ability of quantitative susceptibility mapping (QSM) to quantify microglial activation in white matter lesions. QSM is a post-processing tool that extracts tissue magnetic susceptibility from gradient echo (GRE) data and is thus highly sensitive to iron. A striking feature of chronically activated microglia within MS lesions and the lesion perimeter is their high iron content, which can be detected by QSM. We hypothesize that iron is a sensitive biomarker for chronic, neurotoxic microglial activation in MS lesions and can be accurately detected with QSM. We further hypothesize that dimethyl fumarate (Tecfidera), a FDA-approved MS treatment, prevents iron uptake by microglia and concurrent tissue damage in chronic lesions in MS patients. We will test our hypotheses in a multipronged approach, by confirming that accumulation of iron is associated with a proinflammatory, cytotoxic phenotype in cultured human microglia and in human MS autopsy tissue and that dimethyl fumarate (Tecfidera) reduces iron uptake and proinflammatory polarization in cultured microglia. Moreover, we will combine imaging of MS autopsy tissue with its histopathological analysis to confirm the accuracy of QSM in detecting iron-positive microglia. We will finally conduct a clinical study in which we test the ability of Tecfidera to prevent iron accumulation (and thus proinflammatory microglial activation) and concomitant tissue damage in white matter lesions of MS patients. In summary, we are characterizing, quantifying and targeting in MS patients a novel pathomechanisms, persistent proinflammatory activation of microglia, which may contribute to neurodegeneration and disease severity. QSM can be easily implemented in clinical practice and may become a routine MRI technique to aid treatment decisions for patients that appear stable on conventional MRI but contain a high burden of lesional microglial activation.
Current imaging methods used in clinical care for multiple sclerosis (MS) patients do not capture the chronic microglial inflammation that occurs in established lesions behind a closed blood brain barrier. We will characterize this inflammation and improve its detection in MS patients with quantitative susceptibility mapping (QSM), a novel MRI method. We will then test whether chronic microglial inflammation can be reduced in MS patients with a FDA-approved MS treatment using QSM. Our work will advance understanding of this previously unappreciated aspect of lesion pathology and can be directly applied to MS patient care.
| Ponath, Gerald; Lincoln, Matthew R; Levine-Ritterman, Maya et al. (2018) Enhanced astrocyte responses are driven by a genetic risk allele associated with multiple sclerosis. Nat Commun 9:5337 |
| Ponath, Gerald; Park, Calvin; Pitt, David (2018) The Role of Astrocytes in Multiple Sclerosis. Front Immunol 9:217 |
| Gillen, Kelly M; Mubarak, Mayyan; Nguyen, Thanh D et al. (2018) Significance and In Vivo Detection of Iron-Laden Microglia in White Matter Multiple Sclerosis Lesions. Front Immunol 9:255 |
| Deh, Kofi; Ponath, Gerald D; Molvi, Zaki et al. (2018) Magnetic susceptibility increases as diamagnetic molecules breakdown: Myelin digestion during multiple sclerosis lesion formation contributes to increase on QSM. J Magn Reson Imaging 48:1281-1287 |
