News Health & Medicine

A protein helps disease-causing immune cells invade MS patients’ brains

Tests in human brain barrier cells and mice suggest blocking the protein may slow progression

brain lesions

In multiple sclerosis, immune cells strip the brain’s nerve cells of their protective coating, forming lesions (shown in red in the center of this pseudocolored MRI brain scan).

Govind Bhagavatheeshwaran and Daniel Reich/NINDS/NIH

By Sofie Bates

In multiple sclerosis, barriers that guard the brain become leaky, allowing some disease-causing immune cells to invade. Now scientists have identified a key molecule in the process that helps B cells breach the barriers.