Trained Immunity in Interorgan Communication and Vascular Inflammation
Despite major advances in acute reperfusion therapies, patients surviving ischemic stroke or myocardial infarction remain at high risk for long-term cardiovascular and metabolic comorbidities. Emerging evidence identifies trained immunity, the long-lasting reprogramming of innate immune progenitors, as a central driver of this interorgan communication. Sterile insults such as stroke or myocardial infarction imprint persistent inflammatory memory via long-lasting reprogramming of bone marrow hematopoietic progenitors, biasing myelopoiesis and generating proinflammatory monocytes that target distant organs. This central trained immunity explains how a single ischemic event can precipitate cardiac dysfunction, accelerate atherosclerosis, or exacerbate metabolic disease, thereby contributing to multimorbidity in vascular patients. Understanding these systemic immune circuits provides a conceptual framework for developing interventions that interrupt maladaptive inflammatory memory. Finally, we discuss emerging therapeutic strategies to prevent maladaptive innate immune memory and mitigate chronic vascular inflammation and multimorbidity.
Authors
- Arthur Liesz
Institutions
- Munich Cluster for Systems Neurology (DE)
- Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München (DE)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Arteriosclerosis Thrombosis and Vascular Biology
- Published
- 2026-01-22
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1161/atvbaha.125.323130
- Primary Topic
- Immune responses and vaccinations
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 0.00