Jerika J. Barron

CommentaryOnline nowOpen access Affiliations & Notes 1Arc Institute, Palo Alto, CA, United States of America 2University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, United States of America Article Info Publication History: Published online August 26, 2026 DOI: 10.1016/j.cell.2026.08.004 External LinkAlso available on ScienceDirect External Link Copyright: © 2026 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc.

Abstract Neuroinflammation plays a key role in Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and many other neurodegenerative disorders. Chronic activation of astrocytes and microglia fuels neuronal damage via cytokine secretion, oxidative stress, and proteolysis, yet glial inflammatory regulation remains poorly understood. Using chemoproteomics, we identified CK2, particularly the brain-enriched catalytic subunit CK2α2, as a key driver of astrocytic inflammation.

Editor’s summary Nucleated cells have evolved a complex molecular machinery to remove internal sequences known as introns from the primary RNA transcripts of genes. This splicing process is necessary for the translation of gene messages into proteins and allows the production of alternative mRNAs and proteins from individual genes. After individually lowering the expression of more than 300 genes encoding components of the intron-removing machinery, Rogalska et al.