Table 4.

Summary of the role of galectins in neurological disease.

Neurological conditions	Type of galectin	Disease-associated features	References
Multiple sclerosis	Galectin-1	Astrocytes produce galectin-1 to deactivate microglia through the p38, CREB and NF-κB pathways. The function of galectin-1 produced by MS microglia is unknown.	Starossom et al. (2012)
	Galectin-3	Modulation of immune cell infiltration into the CNS Up-regulation of inflammatory cytokines and down-regulation of anti-inflammatory cytokines in dendritic and T cells. Inhibition of neural cell proliferation	Jiang et al. (2009) and James et al. (2016)
	Galectin-8	Up-regulated in microglia. Immunosuppression in the periphery, unknown effects in the brain.	Stancic et al. (2011) and Pardo et al. (2017)
	Galectin-9	Up-regulated in CSF of secondary progressive MS patients and microglia, its function is not clear. Located in the cytosol of microglia in inactive lesions. Located in the nuclei and cytosol of microglia in active lesions.	Stancic et al. (2011) and Burman and Svenningsson (2016)
Stroke and ischemia	Galectin-3	Up-regulated in the microglia, promotes proliferation. Promotes the production of IGF-1. Suppression of IL6 inflammatory cytokine. Acts as the ligand of TLR4 to promote inflammatory responses.	Lalancette-Hébert et al. (2007, 2012) and Burguillos et al. (2015)
Traumatic brain injury	Galectin-3	Up-regulated in the corpus callosum and is associated with the production of NGF. Up-regulated in the cortex and hippocampus and promotes inflammation.	Venkatesan et al. (2010) and Yip et al. (2017)
Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS)	Galectin-1	Up-regulated in the spinal cord at the end stage.	Lerman et al. (2012)
	Galectin-3	Up-regulated in the microglia and suppresses inflammation and oxidative damage in the spinal cord.	Lerman et al. (2012)
	Galectin-9	Up-regulated in the spinal cord at the symptomatic stage	Lerman et al. (2012)
Parkinson’s disease	Galectin-3	Up-regulated in the microglia to promote phagocytosis of α-synuclein and secretion of inflammatory cytokines.	Boza-Serrano et al. (2014)
Prion disease	Galectin-3	Up-regulated in the medulla and pons. Up-regulation associated with impairment of lysosomal function and autophagy.	Riemer et al. (2004) and Mok et al. (2007)