Programmed cell death and natural killer cells in multiple sclerosis: New potential therapeutic targets?

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a chronic, severe and complex disease of still uncertain etiopathogenesis, with lesions in the cerebral white matter and spinal cord. The disease is heterogeneous, but is characterized by neuroinflammatory and neurodegenerative processes, usually associated with altered activation of the immune system following presumable stimulation by still unknown autoantigens. Several data confirm that MS is a systemic disease involving the central and peripheral nervous systems (Macchi et al., 2015). The role of adaptive immunity, sustained by T and B cells, in MS has been studied for decades. More recently, however, increasing attention has been paid to the role of innate immunity in MS progression. Our understanding of the molecular and cellular bases of the innate immune responses, showing heterogeneity of their genotypic and phenotypic features, has been improved in recent years.