Fever : Role of brain endothelial prostaglandins

Sammanfattning: Fever and loss of appetite are two of the most fundamental manifestations of disease. These disease symptoms, which lead to deviations from normal body temperature and food intake patterns, are seen in a vast array of infectious and inflammatory conditions. It is known that peripheral signals from the immune system are essential triggers for these responses, which are orchestrated by neuronal circuits in the brain. Due to the blood‐brain barrier, peripheral inflammatory signals require a specific mode of transmission into the brain. Such mechanisms have been proposed, but interventional studies of these mechanisms have never rendered conclusive results. In this thesis, we present the first functional evidence of cyclooxygenase 2 (COX‐2) and microsomal prostaglandin E synthase type 1 (mPGES‐1) mediated prostaglandin E2 synthesis in the blood‐brain barrier endothelial cells as a signaling mechanism in the initiation of inflammatory fever. We also show that one of the world’s most widely used antipyretics, paracetamol, acts by inhibition of COX‐2. Combined with the finding that COX‐2 and mPGES‐1 in brain endothelial cells play a key role in inflammatory fever, this finding suggests that paracetamol inhibits fever by specifically blocking prostaglandin E2 synthesis in blood‐brain barrier endothelium. In another symptom of inflammation, anorexia, the cellular origin of peripheral signals triggering acute anorexia are largely unknown. We show that the expression of myeloid differentiation primary response gene 88 (Myd88) in myeloid cells is important for the initiation of acute inflammatory anorexia and the maintenance of cancer anorexia‐cachexia.Taken together, these findings provide a significant advancement of our understanding of the mechanisms triggering acute inflammatory fever and anorexia and also explain the antipyretic effect of paracetamol.