Our bodies are amazing and intricate structures. Our immune system functions to help fight against pathogens that cause infection and disease. But, when chronic inflammation occurs, this immune response can be detrimental to your overall health.
In new research published in Cell, researchers from the University of Pennsylvania School of Dental Medicine and researchers at the Technical University of Dresden, analysis of a mouse model showed that those with a bone marrow transplant were prone to more severe arthritis if their donor suffered from inflammatory gum disease. Overall, the researchers concluded that immune response could cause one type of inflammatory condition, such as gum disease, to increase susceptibility to another inflammatory disease like arthritis via changes to bone marrow immune cell precursors, as shown in this study. They believe that individuals with periodontal disease are at a higher risk of developing other inflammatory conditions, like heart disease and arthritis, and vice versa.
The researchers transplanted two hundred stem cells from the bone marrow of mice that had periodontitis into mice that never had gum disease. As a result, after a few months the researchers found that the donor recipient mice were exposed to collagen antibodies, which trigger arthritis. Hajishengallis stated, “Mice that received the transplant from mice with periodontitis developed more severe arthritis than mice that received a donation of stem cells from periodontally healthy mice.” Co-author Triantafyllos Chavakis also noted, “And higher joint inflammation in recipient mice was due to inflammatory cells deriving from the periodontitis-trained stem cells.”
Study author George Hajishengallis, a professor in UPenn Dental stated, “Although we use periodontitis and arthritis as our model, our findings go above and beyond these examples…This is in fact a central mechanism, a unifying principle underlying the association between a variety of comorbidities.” As a result of these findings, the researchers believe that this may trigger becoming selective in choosing bone marrow donors to lower the potential risk of transplant recipients suffering from inflammatory disorders.
An earlier study with author Hajishengallis and colleagues suggested that the innate immune response has memory capacity to remember pathogens that were previously encountered in the body. In addition, they revealed that this innate immunity could be transferred from organisms via bone marrow transplants and potentially protect donor recipients from cancer. However, Hajishengallis’ noted the potential disadvantages being, “The thoughts went like this: We knew the gum disease periodontitis increased the risk of comorbidities like cardiovascular disease…And the reverse is also true: People with the inflammatory disease colitis, for example, have an increased prevalence of periodontal disease. Different mechanisms have been proposed, but no one unifying mechanism could explain this bidirectionality.”
Hajishengallis believes, “our findings suggest that it’s important for clinicians to keep in mind how the medical history of the donor is going to affect the health of the recipient.” To read more on the researchers findings, click here. Researchers are continuing to investigate the potential link between inflammatory conditions and periodontal disease.
References:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/04/220427115816.htm
https://www.creative-biolabs.com/drug-discovery/diagnostics/images/12-Inflammatory.jpg