NOD2

Cerebral amyloid angiopathy (CAA), a cerebral small vessel disease (SVD) characterised by the presence of amyloid beta (Aβ) peptide within cortical and leptomeningeal blood vessel walls, is a condition of increasing clinical and mechanistic importance that is largely untreatable at this time. Dr. Serge Rivest from Université Laval is proposing a systemic approach to facilitate innate immune responses and affect vascular clearance of cerebral amyloid accumulation in CNS disease. Through small molecule agonists of the NOD2 receptor, an intracellular pattern recognition receptor that recognizes certain components of bacterial cell walls, inflammatory Ly6C^high monocytes are successfully converted into patrolling Ly6C^low monocytes.