Impact of Environmental Factors in Neuroinflammation Development: Role of microRNA and Opportunity for Diagnosis and Pharmacological

Dear Colleagues,

Despite the blood-brain barrier protecting the brain against environmental and internal factors, the central nervous system is continuously exposed to cellular stress. The chance of developing neurological disorders increases significantly with age, in particular in industrial countries where pollutant emission is high. MicroRNA (miRNA) are a class of well-known noncoding RNA with a dynamic spatiotemporal expression pattern, which fine-tune the expression of multiple mRNA targets for the optimal orchestration of biological responses. Increasing experimental and clinical evidence indicates that miRNA expression is profoundly altered in neuroinflammatory diseases and that its normalization by using oligonucleotide-based therapy approaches is sometime sufficient to treat or even to eradicate pathologies, at least in animal models.

This Special Issue aims to gather relevant original research and review manuscripts on some challenging aspects of miRNA biology in neuroinflammatory diseases that have not yet been well studied, either because of the lack of relevant animal models or because of our incomple understanding of their underlying biological processes. Manuscripts on the impact of external environments factors such as air pollution, pesticides, toxic metals, as well of internal factors such as stress hormones, food additives, chronic alcohol consumption on the regulation of miRNA during the development of neuroinflammatory processes are particularly encouraged, as well as manuscripts presenting animal models recapitulating these diseases. Studies on age-related neuroinflammatory pathologies such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and Huntington's diseases are also of interest.

Dr. Patrick Baril
Guest Editor

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• microRNA
• inflammation
• brain
• Environmental health
• Pollutant