Researchers at The University of Texas at Arlington (UTA) have found a potential new pathway to regulate immune response and potentially control inflammatory diseases of the central nervous system such as meningitis and sepsis. "We need to know what turns on inflammatory response to bacterial infection to be able to modulate the process," said Subhrangsu Mandal, PhD, the UTA Associate Professor of Chemistry who led the research. "If we can do so, we can control inflammatory diseases of the central nervous system that have been hard to treat up to now, such as sepsis and meningitis, as well as cancer and muscular dystrophy, which can also be seen a kind of inflammation," he added. The research findings of Dr. Mandal’s team were published online on October 23, 2018 in Scientific Reports. The open-access article is titled “LncRNA HOTAIR Regulates Lipopolysaccharide-Induced Cytokine Expression and Inflammatory Response in Macrophages.” The researchers have found that the long non-coding RNA (lncRNA) molecule HOTAIR present in white blood cells has the capacity to signal these cells to activate immune response in the presence of bacteria. RNA is present in all living cells. Its primary role is to carry instructions from DNA. "Knowing that HOTAIR has a role in the signaling pathway also means that we can use it as a biomarker for bacterial infection," Dr. Mandal added.Login Or Register To Read Full Story