Single cell transcriptomic analyses of the developing meninges reveal meningeal fibroblast diversity and function
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ABSTRACT:
ORGANISM(S): Mus musculus
PROVIDER: GSE150219 | GEO | 2020/07/06
REPOSITORIES: GEO
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Project description:The meninges are a tripartite system of membranous tissue comprised of pial, arachnoid and dural layers that cover both the brain and spinal cord. Between the arachnoid and pial layers is the subarachnoid space filled with cerebrospinal fluid (CSF). Though the meninges have long been thought to provide largely a protective function, a growing number of studies highlight this tissue to be a nest of immune activity, harboring T cells, B cells, macrophages, and a variety of other myeloid cell types during health and disease. But despite the burgeoning prospect that the meninges might play a decidedly more active role in immune and other regulatory processes than previously thought, little is known about their structural makeup. Contributing to this void, considerable technical challenges prevent sophisticated analysis of the meninges at cellular and molecular levels. In addition, removal of the brain and spinal cord from their bony encasement leads to tearing of the tenuous meninges and significant disruption of the delicate inter-membrane arrangements. Also lacking are sufficient molecular targets to identify the various meningeal structural elements, only hinted at so far by scanning electron microscopy. Accordingly, we developed a method to allow removal of brain and spinal meninges while minimizing risk of parenchymal contamination and performed shotgun proteomics on the two meningeal domains. While the vast majority of proteins at both locales overlapped, several proteins – including those of structural nature – were exclusive to brain or spinal meninges. Targeting proteins revealed in the proteomic data, the cellular and extracellular elements that provide the meninges’ structure were identified using confocal and electron microscopy, and were observed for the first time in high-resolution
2023-11-01 | PXD039294 | Pride
Project description:The meninges, comprising the leptomeninges (pia and arachnoid layers) and the pachymeninx (dura layer), participate in CNS autoimmunity but their relative contributions remain unclear. Here, we report on findings in animal models of CNS autoimmunity and in multiple sclerosis patients, where, in chronic disease, the leptomeninges were highly inflamed and showed structural changes, while the dura mater was only marginally affected. Although dural vessels were leakier than leptomeningeal vessels, effector T cells adhered more weakly to the dural endothelium. Furthermore, local antigen presenting cells presented myelin and neuronal autoantigens less efficiently and the activation of autoreactive T cells was lower in dural than leptomeningeal layers, preventing local inflammatory processes. Direct antigen application was required to evoke a local inflammatory response in the dura. Together, our data demonstrate an uneven involvement of the meningeal layers in CNS autoimmunity, in which effector T cell trafficking and activation are functionally confined to the leptomeninges, while the dura remains largely shielded from CNS autoimmune processes.
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Project description:The meninges are generally considered relatively inert tissues that house the CSF and provide protection for the brain and spinal cord. However, our previous studies using Kit mutant (Kit W/Wv) mast cell-deficient mice demonstrated that mast cells residing in the dura mater and pia mater exacerbate the severity of experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis (EAE), the rodent model of the CNS demyelinating disease, multiple sclerosis. These data suggest that the meninges are sites of active immune responses in disease. Gene expression profiles of meningeal tissue from wild type and mast cell deficient mice prior to and at day 6 post-EAE induction were found highly distinct. Increases in both mast cell- and neutrophil-associated transcripts were among the notable disease-related changes observed in wild type mice. Kinetic analyses show that meningeal mast cells are activated within 24 hours of disease induction to express multiple mediators including IL-1b and TNF as well as the neutrophil chemoattractant, CXCL2, an observation corresponding with an influx of neutrophils to the meninges. Neutrophil recruitment as well as the disease-related loss of BBB integrity is dependent on mast cell-derived TNF. These data provide unequivocal evidence that the meninges are sites of early inflammatory events in EAE. Mast cells residing within these tissues promote disease by orchestrating an early and efficient immune cell co-localization resulting in a robust local inflammatory response and a breach of the proximal BBB. We hypothesize that these events reflect an aberrant manifestation of the normal immune surveillance role of the meninges in infection settings. Immunized WT and Kit W/Wv mice were sacrificed on Day 6 post-immunization and perfused with PBS as were naïve littermate control mice. The dura mater was immediately removed from the calvarium of the skull and pooled (10 mice/group, 4 groups). RNA was isolated using SV Total RNA Isolation System (Promega). Each pool was analyzed in technical triplicates. Briefly, cRNA was synthesized and amplified/labeled using the Affymetrix Express Kit, then fragmented and hybridized to the The GeneChip® Mouse Genome 430 2.0 Array in accordance to the Affymetrix GeneChip expression analysis technical manual (Affymetrix, Santa Clara, CA). After hybridization, arrays were washed and stained with Affymetrix fluidics protocol FS450_0001 and scanned with a 7G Affymetrix GeneChip Scanner. Image data were analyzed with Affymetrix Expression Console™ software and normalized with Robust Multichip Analysis (RMA; www.bioconductor.org/) to determine signal log ratios (CITE: Gentleman, R.C., Carey, V.J., Bates, D.M., Bolstad, B., Dettling, M., Dudoit, S., Ellis, B., Gautier, L., Ge, Y., Gentry, J., et al. (2004). Bioconductor: open software development for computational biology and bioinformatics. Genome Biol 5, R80.). The mean fold change was calculated from 3 independent technical replicates for each of the four experimental conditions and assessed by a non-parametric rank product test (CITE: Hong, F., Breitling, R., McEntee, C.W., Wittner, B.S., Nemhauser, J.L., and Chory, J. (2006). RankProd: a bioconductor package for detecting differentially expressed genes in meta-analysis. Bioinformatics 22, 2825-2827). Heat maps were generated with Genesis (Cite: Sturn, A., Quackenbush, J. and Trajanoski, Z. (2002) Genesis: cluster analysis of microarray data. Bioinformatics, 18, 207-208).
2013-01-01 | E-GEOD-37191 | biostudies-arrayexpress
Project description:The meninges are generally considered relatively inert tissues that house the CSF and provide protection for the brain and spinal cord. However, our previous studies using Kit mutant (Kit W/Wv) mast cell-deficient mice demonstrated that mast cells residing in the dura mater and pia mater exacerbate the severity of experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis (EAE), the rodent model of the CNS demyelinating disease, multiple sclerosis. These data suggest that the meninges are sites of active immune responses in disease. Gene expression profiles of meningeal tissue from wild type and mast cell deficient mice prior to and at day 6 post-EAE induction were found highly distinct. Increases in both mast cell- and neutrophil-associated transcripts were among the notable disease-related changes observed in wild type mice. Kinetic analyses show that meningeal mast cells are activated within 24 hours of disease induction to express multiple mediators including IL-1b and TNF as well as the neutrophil chemoattractant, CXCL2, an observation corresponding with an influx of neutrophils to the meninges. Neutrophil recruitment as well as the disease-related loss of BBB integrity is dependent on mast cell-derived TNF. These data provide unequivocal evidence that the meninges are sites of early inflammatory events in EAE. Mast cells residing within these tissues promote disease by orchestrating an early and efficient immune cell co-localization resulting in a robust local inflammatory response and a breach of the proximal BBB. We hypothesize that these events reflect an aberrant manifestation of the normal immune surveillance role of the meninges in infection settings.
2013-01-01 | GSE37191 | GEO
Project description:The central nervous system (CNS) is ensheathed by the meninges and cerebrospinal fluid. Recent findings suggest complex immunological functions of these CNS-associated border tissues. Unlike myeloid lineage cells, lymphocytes in border compartments have been largely disregarded in previous studies. Based on single cell transcriptomics, we here identified a highly location-specific composition and expression profile of tissue-resident leukocytes in every border compartment. Only the dura layer of the meninges contained a large population of B cells under homeostatic conditions in multiple species. Murine dura B cells exhibited slow turnover, long-term tissue residency and matured in experimental neuroinflammation. The dura also contained B lineage progenitors at the pro-B cell stage unexpected outside of bone marrow, without direct influx from the periphery or the skull bone marrow. This identifies the dura as an unexpected site of B cell residence and potentially development in homeostasis and neuroinflammation.
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Project description:The meninges are densely innervated by nociceptive sensory neurons that mediate pain and headache. How pain and neuro-immune interactions impact meningeal host defenses is unclear. Bacterial meningitis causes life-threatening infections of the meninges and central nervous system (CNS), affecting over one million people a year. Here we find that Nav1.8+ neuron signaling to immune cells in the meninges via the neuropeptide calcitonin gene-related peptide (CGRP) exacerbates bacterial meningitis. Nociceptor ablation reduced meningeal and brain invasion by two bacterial pathogens: Streptococcus pneumoniae and Streptococcus agalactiae. S. pneumoniae activated nociceptors via Pneumolysin to release CGRP, which acts through its receptor RAMP1 on meningeal macrophages to inhibit chemokine expression, neutrophil recruitment and antimicrobial defenses. Macrophage-specific RAMP1 deficiency or blockade of RAMP1 signaling enhanced immune responses and bacterial clearance in meninges and brain. Therefore, targeting a neuro-immune axis in the meninges can enhance host defenses and may be a potential treatment for bacterial meningitis.
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Project description:In this work we report that early developing B cells present in the meninges of mice at all ages. Single cell RNA-sequencing (scRNA-seq) analysis revealed a consecutive trajectory of meningeal developing B cells in mice and non-human primates (NHPs). Parabiosis together with lineage tracing of hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) showed that meningeal developing B cells are continuously replenished from the HSC-derived progenitors via a circulation-independent route. Importantly, autoreactive immature B cells which recognize myelin oligodendrocyte glycoprotein (MOG), a central nervous system (CNS)-specific antigen, are eliminated from the meninges but not BM. Furthermore, genetic deletion of MOG tolerated the development/presence/residence of self-reactive B cells in the meninges. Thus, we propose that meninges function as a unique reservoir for B cell development, allowing in situ negative selection of CNS-antigen-autoreactive B cell clones to ensure a local non-self-reactive immune repertoire.
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Project description:The arachnoid barrier delineates the border between the central nervous system and dura mater. Although the arachnoid barrier creates a partition, communication between the central nervous system and the dura mater is crucial for waste clearance and immune surveillance. How the arachnoid barrier balances separation and communication is poorly understood. Leveraging transcriptomic data, we developed novel transgenic mice to examine specific anatomical structures that serve as routes across the arachnoid barrier. Bridging veins create discontinuities where they cross the arachnoid barrier, forming structures that we termed arachnoid cuff exit (ACE) points. The openings that ACE points create allow the exchange of fluids and molecules between the subarachnoid space and the dura, enabling the drainage of cerebrospinal fluid and limited entry of molecules from the dura to the subarachnoid space. In healthy human volunteers, MRI tracers transit along bridging veins in a similar fashion to access the subarachnoid space. Interestingly, in neuroinflammatory conditions such as experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis, ACE points also allow cellular trafficking, representing a previously unknown route for immune cells to directly enter the subarachnoid space from the dura mater. Collectively, our results indicate that ACE points are a critical part of the anatomy of neuroimmune communication in both mice and humans that links the central nervous system with the dura and its immunological diversity and waste clearance systems.
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Project description:The arachnoid barrier delineates the border between the central nervous system and dura mater. Although the arachnoid barrier creates a partition, communication between the central nervous system and the dura mater is crucial for waste clearance and immune surveillance. How the arachnoid barrier balances separation and communication is poorly understood. Leveraging transcriptomic data, we developed novel transgenic mice to examine specific anatomical structures that serve as routes across the arachnoid barrier. Bridging veins create discontinuities where they cross the arachnoid barrier, forming structures that we termed arachnoid cuff exit (ACE) points. The openings that ACE points create allow the exchange of fluids and molecules between the subarachnoid space and the dura, enabling the drainage of cerebrospinal fluid and limited entry of molecules from the dura to the subarachnoid space. In healthy human volunteers, MRI tracers transit along bridging veins in a similar fashion to access the subarachnoid space. Interestingly, in neuroinflammatory conditions such as experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis, ACE points also allow cellular trafficking, representing a previously unknown route for immune cells to directly enter the subarachnoid space from the dura mater. Collectively, our results indicate that ACE points are a critical part of the anatomy of neuroimmune communication in both mice and humans that links the central nervous system with the dura and its immunological diversity and waste clearance systems.
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