Cell injury/death leads to Tissue resident cell activation

The pioneering work of Kreutzberg and coworkers (1995, 1996) has shown that neuronal injury leads to neuroinflammation, with microglia and astrocyte reactivity. Several chemokines and chemokines receptors (fraktalkine, CD200) control the neuron-microglia interactions, and a loss of this control can trigger microglial reactivity (Blank and Prinz, 2013; Chapman et al., 2000; Streit et al., 2001). Upon injury causing neuronal death (mainly necrotic), signals termed Damage-Associated Molecular Patterns (DAMPs) are released by damaged neurons and promote microglial reactivity (Marin-Teva et al., 2011; Katsumoto et al., 2014). Toll-like receptors (TLRs) are pattern-recognition receptors that recognize specific pathogen- and danger-associated molecular signatures (PAMPs and DAMPs) and subsequently initiate inflammatory and immune responses. Microglial cells express TLRs, mainly TLR-2, which can detect neuronal cell death (for review, see Hayward and Lee, 2014). TLR-2 functions as a master sentry receptor to detect neuronal death and tissue damage in many different neurological conditions including nerve trans-section injury, traumatic brain injury and hippocampal excitotoxicity (Hayward and Lee, 2014). Astrocytes, the other cellular mediator of neuroinflammation (Ranshoff and Brown, 2012) are also able to sense tissue injury via TLR-3 (Farina et al., 2007; Rossi, 2015).

LIVER:

Damaged hepatocytes release reactive oxygen species (ROS), cytokines such as TGF-β1 and TNF-α, and chemokines which lead to oxidative stress, inflammatory signalling and finally activation of the resident macrophages in the liver, Kupffer cells (KCs). ROS generation in hepatocytes results from oxidative metabolism by NADH oxidase (NOX) and cytochrome 2E1 activation as well as through lipid peroxidation. Damaged liver cells trigger a sterile inflammatory response with activation of innate immune cells through release of damage-associated molecular patterns (DAMPs), which activate KCs through toll-like receptors and recruit activated neutrophils and monocytes into the liver. Central to this inflammatory response is the promotion of ROS formation by these phagocytes. Upon initiation of apoptosis hepatocytes undergo genomic DNA fragmentation and formation of apoptotic bodies; these apoptotic bodies are consecutively engulfed by KCs and cause their activation. This increased phagocytic activity strongly up-regulates NOX expression in KCs, a superoxide producing enzyme of phagocytes with profibrogenic activity, as well as nitric oxide synthase (iNOS) mRNA transcriptional levels with consequent harmful reaction between ROS and nitricoxide (NO), like the generation of cytotoxic peroxinitrite (N2O3). ROS and/or diffusible aldehydes also derive from liver sinusoidal endothelial cells (LSECs) which are additional initial triggers of KC activation. [Winwood and Arthur,1993; Luckey and Petersen, 2001; Roberts et al., 2007; Malhi, H. et al., 2010; Canbay et al., 2004; Orrenius et al., 2012; Kisseleva and Brenner, 2008; Jaeschke, 2011; Li et al., 2008; Poli, 2000]

Liver:

Human [Winwood and Arthur,1993; Roberts et al., 2007; Kolios et al., 2006]    

Rat [Tukov et al., 2006; Roberts et al., 2007]