In the present study, we investigated the effect of the commonly persisting cerebral Toxoplasma infection and resulting CNS inflammation on Aβ plaque formation in a murine model of AD. In the following, we will first discuss the etiologic connection between T. gondii and AD and how our results contribute to the understanding of this connection. Second, we will address the individual results and evaluate what we learned from this experimental setup with respect to a possible treatment of AD.
Insights regarding the treatment of AD
As mentioned above, we measured decreased levels of Aβ plaques in the brains of
T. gondii infected 5xFAD mice and the remaining plaques were also smaller in volume. These findings are consistent with the aforementioned study by Jung and colleagues, where they further described an improved performance in behavioral tests compared to non-infected transgenic mice [
58].
We performed a more detailed investigation of the Aβ load and detected that the general reduction of Aβ plaques was paralleled by a decrease in small soluble Aβ species. Because higher levels of soluble Aβ has previously been linked to decreased cognitive performance [
86,
87], this finding could suggest that our experimental setup at least partially protects from cognitive decline.
Controlling the infection with
T. gondii requires the collaboration of innate and adaptive immunity [
48]. Even though there are inflammatory diseases of the CNS which involve adaptive immune cells, such as multiple sclerosis, the inflammation observed in AD seems to be restricted to innate immune cells [
88]. Thus, we focused our further analysis on the contribution of the innate compartment.
The detailed analysis of infiltrating immune cells confirmed the strong recruitment of innate immune cells, particularly CD45
hi CD11b
hi myeloid cells, to the brains of
T. gondii infected 5xFAD mice, similar to that seen in wildtype mice. It has been described previously by our group that in mice chronically infected with
T. gondii, Ly6C
hi monocytes migrate to the CNS and further differentiate into Ly6C
int mononuclear cells and Ly6C
low macrophages in order to carry out specific tasks in host defense, such as cytokine production and Fc receptor mediated cellular phagocytosis [
18,
23].
We analyzed the contribution of these myeloid-derived mononuclear cell subsets in the process of accumulating Aβ plaques that, according to the widely accepted view on AD pathophysiology, ultimately promote neurodegeneration.
Ex vivo phagocytosis assay most likely by an antibody-independent mechanism revealed that all recruited mononuclear subpopulations were able to take up significantly more Aβ
42 than microglia from non-infected or activated microglia from
T. gondii infected 5xFAD mice. We found that Ly6C
hi monocytes displayed an even higher uptake compared to Ly6C
low cells. Comparing the ability to take up Aβ
42 with the ability to take up latex spheres as previously published [
23], we noted a difference with respect to the Ly6C
hi and Ly6C
int subsets. While their uptake of latex spheres is very low [
23], they displayed a prominent uptake of Aβ
42. Even though our results are against the general view that Ly6C
low cells are the most macrophage-like subset, other publications have attributed phagocytic activity to Ly6C
+ monocytes against parasites [
89,
90]. Thus, we conclude that uptake of latex beads and Aβ
42 is mediated by different mechanisms with diverse appearance in Ly6C
hi monocytes and Ly6C
low macrophages.
While neuroinflammation has been conventionally reported to be detrimental and associated with several neurological diseases [
91‐
93], emerging research promotes a more differentiated view on the roles of recruited immune cells in homeostatic and repair mechanisms [
12,
13,
27,
94,
95]. Consistent with this concept, there are a growing number of reports indicating the beneficial effect of recruited immune cells in AD and vascular amyloidosis [
28‐
30,
96‐
98].
Performing the
ex vivo phagocytosis assay with cells obtained from both wildtype and 5xFAD mice, we also observed that the relative contributions were independent of the genotype, despite absolute values being different. As these differences were most likely caused by the different quantification methods, we conclude that wildtype cells are potent Aβ clearing cells as well. Importantly, this finding suggests that cells probably do not have to be pre-exposed to Aβ to efficiently phagocytose Aβ in a possible treatment strategy. It is somehow challenging that human macrophages were found to be ineffective at Aβ phagocytosis when derived from AD patients [
99]. Nevertheless, modulating the route of entry may provide a tool to skew recruited monocytes towards an inflammation resolving phenotype [
22] and the capacity of these manipulated monocytes to remove Aβ remains to be investigated, as two studies have found that the replacement of brain resident microglia with peripheral myeloid cells does not reduce the Aβ burden [
100,
101]. Both studies used a similar approach to replace microglia with peripheral cells, i. e. depletion of brain resident CD11b-expressing cells during a 10 to 14 days intracerebral ganciclovir treatment of CD11b-HSVTK (herpes simplex virus thymidine kinase) transgenic mice [
100,
101]. This treatment leads to a one-time replacement with bone marrow-derived myeloid cells, as opposed to the continuous influx observed in our model of chronic cerebral
T. gondii infection. Additionally, Prokop and colleagues point out the lack of an activating stimulus in their model, which would be able to induce the uptake of Aβ by myeloid cells [
100]. Even though this lack of stimulation is resolved in our experimental model, finding appropriate stimuli to manipulate the cells is a complex task, as we have to keep in mind that beneficial and detrimental effects of monocytes and macrophages can occur at the same time [
102].
The increased amount of Aβ
42 detected following CCR2
hi Ly6C
hi monocyte ablation in infected 5xFAD mice points to a causal role of these cells to Aβ clearance. Our findings are supported by a report from Naert and Rivest, who have linked the lack of Ly6C
hi (CX3CR1
low CCR2
+ Gr1
+) monocytes to cognitive decline in APP
Swe/PS1 mice [
65]. This hypothesis is further strengthened by two very recent studies where myeloid cell recruitment to the CNS was correlated with Aβ plaque reduction [
30,
103]. In a very recently published study, Baruch and colleagues proposed a novel treatment strategy to target AD via programmed death-1 (PD-1) inhibition and thereby increasing the recruitment of Ly6C
hi monocytes to the CNS in an IFN-γ dependent manner [
104]. The proposed mechanisms included enhanced cellular uptake and degradation. Furthermore, Savage et al. detected phagocytic cells directly associated with plaques, and the CD45
hi status of these cells suggested their myeloid origin [
105]. Only short-term recruitment of monocytes did not alter plaque deposition as seen in a mouse model of traumatic brain injury [
106].
Having confirmed Ly6C
hi monocytes as key contributors to Aβ removal in our model, we were interested if they migrate into the parenchyma to “attack” Aβ plaques like previous reports have shown [
28,
103,
107]. However, CCR2
+ Ly6C
+ monocytes were not located in the vicinity of plaques in our experiments. Therefore, we propose that the low plaque burden in the applied experimental model is due to Ly6C
hi monocytes’ increased capacity to remove soluble Aβ rather than due to direct removal of established plaques. In addition, monocyte-derived Ly6C
low macrophages upregulate F4/80 and Iba1, and can be located adjacent to the plaques, similarly to resident microglia.
It has to be carefully investigated, at which stages of disease the recruitment of monocytes and subsequent removal of Aβ is beneficial and can delay the onset of disease, and at which stages the cascade triggered by Aβ is already on its way and additional cell recruitment potentially worsens neuroinflammation [
108]. Our data from old animals provides evidence that the ability of freshly recruited immune cells to remove Aβ persists at later stages of experimental amyloidosis.
Searching for a mechanism mediating Aβ uptake, we analyzed the expression of cell surface markers related to phagocytosis on CD11b
hi Ly6G
− myeloid-derived cells. The measurements revealed intermediate levels of TREM2, CD36 and SCARA1 on Ly6C
hi monocytes and high levels on Ly6C
low monocyte-derived macrophages. Recent reports of a correlation between genetic TREM2 mutation and AD [
109,
110], along with experiments pointing out the anti-inflammatory and phagocytosis-enhancing role of TREM2, have drawn the attention towards this molecule [
111‐
114]. We detected that monocyte-derived Ly6C
low macrophages expressed high levels of TREM2, in contrast to Ly6C
hi monocytes. This result underlines that, besides TREM2, other factors may determine the capacity of immune cells such as monocytes to phagocytose Aβ. Several studies have suggested that CD36 expression is associated with Aβ uptake [
76,
115,
116], consistent with the CD36 expression of Ly6C
low monocyte-derived macrophages. Moreover, the lower expression of CD36 detected on Ly6C
hi monocytes may be beneficial because of less harmful pro-inflammatory CD36-Aβ interaction [
117‐
120]. Frenkel and colleagues had shown that SCARA1 (and not CD36) mediates phagocytosis of Aβ [
118]. However, similar to TREM2 and CD36, SCARA1 expression was not a reliable predictor of the Aβ phagocytic capacity of each myeloid-derived mononuclear cell subset in our model.
Recent research highlights the importance of proteolytic Aβ degradation. Several enzymes are known to digest Aβ, including MMP9 and IDE, but the contribution of each enzyme is crucial. Removal of only one can result in significantly increased cerebral Aβ levels [
121], and overexpression leads to decreased Aβ loads [
121‐
123]. We found both
MMP9 and
IDE upregulated significantly upon
T. gondii infection in 5xFAD mice.
MMP9 is one of several matrix metalloproteinases that have been implicated in Aβ degradation and administration of an MMP inhibitor resulted in increased Aβ loads [
121]. Activation of MMPs has to be regarded carefully as well, as a recent study has shown that Aβ increases the permeability of the BCSFB by activation of MMPs [
124]. Even though Brkic and colleagues found the biggest changes for MMP3 expression, the contribution of other MMPs cannot be ruled out. IDE hydrolytically cleaves Aβ [
125], and the significantly increased expression of
IDE, particularly in conjunction with the simultaneously increased
MMP9 expression, therefore most likely promoted the enhanced degradation of Aβ in
T. gondii infected 5xFAD mice, when compared to non-infected controls. Upregulation of
IDE may be a compensatory mechanism, since insulin has been shown to stimulate the growth of
T. gondii in vitro [
126], and increased Aβ degradation could be a beneficial secondary effect.
In addition, intracellular control of protein homeostasis is mediated by the ubiquitin-proteasome system, whereby proteasomes represent the proteolytically active part. Dysfunction of the UPS has been shown to be an early event in Alzheimer’s disease, suggesting that proteasomes may be unable to properly degrade ubiquitin-tagged proteins [
127]. Immunoproteasomes are specific proteasome isoforms that have incorporated the immunosubunits β1i/LMP2, β2i/MECL-1, and β5i/LMP7. Previous data point to an important role of immunoproteasomes in the rapid degradation of oxidant-damaged proteins, thus expression of immunoproteasomes may be beneficial in Aβ clearance [
128]. Indeed, recently published data indicate that reactive glia exhibit induced immunoproteasome expression and activation in the cortex of a plaque pathology mouse model [
129]. On the other hand, β5i/LMP7-deficiency has been shown to result in attenuation of lymphocytic choriomeningitis virus (LCMV)-induced meningitis [
130,
131]. Notably, our data presented here demonstrate the most prominent
β5i/LMP7 expression in recruited mononuclear cell subsets, indicating that high immunoproteasome expression in monocytes and their progeny are associated with their enhanced capacity in Aβ degradation and suggesting a novel mechanism of Aβ elimination. However, the exact engagement of the UPS in the mentioned processes requires detailed investigation in forthcoming experiments.