ArticleBrain, behavior, and immunity2023
Acute IL-6 exposure triggers canonical IL6Ra signaling in hiPSC microglia, but not neural progenitor cells.
Article in Brain, behavior, and immunity, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 14 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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Who cites it
14 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 25 citations in OpenAlex.
- From placenta to the foetus: a systematic review of in vitro models of stress- and inflammation-induced depression in pregnancy.Molecular psychiatry · 2025Pooled it
- Effects of Repetitive Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation on Tumor Necrosis Factor Alpha in Neuropsychological Disorders: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.Brain and behavior · 2025Pooled it
- Dynamic neuro-immune regulation of psychiatric risk loci in human neurons.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Modeling Prenatal Immune Activation in Human Brain Organoids Uncovers IL-6-Dependent Interneuron Dysmaturation.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Schizophrenia risk gene ZNF804A controls ribosome localization and synaptogenesis in developing human neurons.Science advances · 2026Article
- Interleukin-6 produces behavioral deficits in pre-pubescent mice independent of neuroinflammation.Brain, behavior, and immunity · 2025Article
- Peering into the mind: unraveling schizophrenia's secrets using models.Molecular psychiatry · 2025Review
- A microglia-containing cerebral organoid model to study early life immune challenges.Brain, behavior, and immunity · 2025Article
- Integrating human endogenous retroviruses into transcriptome-wide association studies highlights novel risk factors for major psychiatric conditions.Nature communications · 2024Article
- The Role of IL-6 in Neurodegenerative Disorders.Neurochemical research · 2024Review
- Human Glial Cells as Innovative Targets for the Therapy of Central Nervous System Pathologies.Cells · 2024Review
- Human brain organoid model of maternal immune activation identifies radial glia cells as selectively vulnerable.Molecular psychiatry · 2023Article
- Pluripotent stem cell-derived neural progenitor cells can be used to model effects of IL-6 on human neurodevelopment.Disease models & mechanisms · 2023Article
- Advances in the knowledge and therapeutics of schizophrenia, major depression disorder, and bipolar disorder from human brain organoid research.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2023Review
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
13 authors at 1 institution in 2 countries.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundPrenatal exposure to elevated interleukin (IL)-6 levels is associated with increased risk for psychiatric disorders with a putative neurodevelopmental origin, such as schizophrenia (SZ), autism spectrum condition (ASC) and bipolar disorder (BD). Although rodent models provide causal evidence for this association, we lack a detailed understanding of the cellular and molecular mechanisms in human model systems. To close this gap, we characterized the response of human induced pluripotent stem cell (hiPSC-)derived microglia-like cells (MGL) and neural progenitor cells (NPCs) to IL-6 in monoculture.
resultsWe observed that human forebrain NPCs did not respond to acute IL-6 exposure in monoculture at both protein and transcript levels due to the absence of IL6R expression and soluble (s)IL6Ra secretion. By contrast, acute IL-6 exposure resulted in STAT3 phosphorylation and increased IL6, JMJD3 and IL10 expression in MGL, confirming activation of canonical IL6Ra signaling. Bulk RNAseq identified 156 up-regulated genes (FDR < 0.05) in MGL following acute IL-6 exposure, including IRF8, REL, HSPA1A/B and OXTR, which significantly overlapped with an up-regulated gene set from human post-mortem brain tissue from individuals with schizophrenia. Acute IL-6 stimulation significantly increased MGL motility, consistent with gene ontology pathways highlighted from the RNAseq data and replicating rodent model indications that IRF8 regulates microglial motility. Finally, IL-6 induces MGLs to secrete CCL1, CXCL1, MIP-1α/β, IL-8, IL-13, IL-16, IL-18, MIF and Serpin-E1 after 3 h and 24 h.
conclusionOur data provide evidence for cell specific effects of acute IL-6 exposure in a human model system, ultimately suggesting that microglia-NPC co-culture models are required to study how IL-6 influences human cortical neural progenitor cell development in vitro.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.