Immune cell interactions in amyloid‐beta plaque pathology

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is the most prevalent neurodegenerative disease in the Western world characterized by a progressive loss of cognitive functions leading to dementia. Besides others, AD is characterized by the formation of amyloid-beta plaques, which often co-localize with increased neuroinflammation, ie activation of brain resident glial cells, in particular microglia, as well as infiltrating peripheral immune cells. The function and interaction of peripheral immune cells with the brains microglia are so far not fully understood. By serendipity, we observed doublecortin (DCX; generally used as a marker for young immature neurons) positive cells located at sites of amyloid-beta plaques in various transgenic amyloid mouse models and in human AD specimen.