Project description:Acute cognitive impairment (i.e., delirium) is common in elderly emergency department patients and frequently results from infections that are unrelated to the central nervous system. Since activation of the peripheral innate immune system induces brain microglia to produce inflammatory cytokines that are responsible for behavioral deficits, we investigated if aging exacerbated neuroinflammation and sickness behavior after peripheral injection of lipopolysaccharide (LPS). Microarray analysis revealed a transcriptional profile indicating the presence of primed or activated microglia and increased inflammation in the aged brain. Furthermore, aged mice had a unique gene expression profile in the brain after an intraperitoneal injection of LPS, and the LPS-induced elevation in the brain inflammatory cytokines and oxidative stress was both exaggerated and prolonged compared with adults. Aged mice were anorectic longer and lost more weight than adults after peripheral LPS administration. Moreover, reductions in both locomotor and social behavior remained 24 h later in aged mice, when adults had fully recovered, and the exaggerated neuroinflammatory response in aged mice was not reliably paralleled by increased circulating cytokines in the periphery. Taken together these data establish that activation of the peripheral innate immune system leads to exacerbated neuroinflammation in the aged as compared with adult mice. This dysregulated link between the peripheral and central innate immune system is likely to be involved in the severe behavioral deficits that frequently occur in older adults with systemic infections. Experiment Overall Design: In this study, adult and aged mice were injected intraperitoneal with sterile saline or Escherichia coli LPS (0.33 mg/kg, ~10 µg/mouse; serotype 0127:B8, Sigma). This dosage of LPS was used because it induces a mild transient sickness behavior in young adults. Mice were killed 4 h after saline or LPS injection by CO2 asphyxiation. Blood samples were collected and brains were removed, separated in half at the longitudinal fissure, frozen in liquid nitrogen, and stored (-80°C) until assaying. Total RNA was later isolated from some brain samples for microarray analysis (n=3).
Project description:Acute cognitive impairment (i.e., delirium) is common in elderly emergency department patients and frequently results from infections that are unrelated to the central nervous system. Since activation of the peripheral innate immune system induces brain microglia to produce inflammatory cytokines that are responsible for behavioral deficits, we investigated if aging exacerbated neuroinflammation and sickness behavior after peripheral injection of lipopolysaccharide (LPS). Microarray analysis revealed a transcriptional profile indicating the presence of primed or activated microglia and increased inflammation in the aged brain. Furthermore, aged mice had a unique gene expression profile in the brain after an intraperitoneal injection of LPS, and the LPS-induced elevation in the brain inflammatory cytokines and oxidative stress was both exaggerated and prolonged compared with adults. Aged mice were anorectic longer and lost more weight than adults after peripheral LPS administration. Moreover, reductions in both locomotor and social behavior remained 24 h later in aged mice, when adults had fully recovered, and the exaggerated neuroinflammatory response in aged mice was not reliably paralleled by increased circulating cytokines in the periphery. Taken together, these data establish that activation of the peripheral innate immune system leads to exacerbated neuroinflammation in the aged as compared with adult mice. This dysregulated link between the peripheral and central innate immune system is likely to be involved in the severe behavioral deficits that frequently occur in older adults with systemic infections. Keywords: Aging, cytokines, brain, inflammation, behavior
Project description:Neuroinflammation and activation of innate immunity are pathological hallmarks of Alzheimer’s disease (AD). In contrast, very few studies have examined the impact of the adaptive immune system in AD pathogenesis. In this study, we find that genetic deletion of peripheral immune populations significantly accelerates amyloid pathogenesis, worsens neuroinflammation, and alters microglial activation state. We used microarray analysis to profile gene expression underlying genotype related changes at the cellular level in the context of AD .
Project description:We show that platelet factors transfer rejuvenating effects of young plasma to the aging brain. Proteomic analysis of plasma from young and aged mice identified age-related changes in platelets. Systemic exposure of aged animals to the platelet fraction of young plasma decreased hippocampal neuroinflammation at a transcriptional and cellular level and ameliorated cognitive impairments. We identified the platelet-derived chemokine CXCL4/Platelet Factor-4 (PF4) as a pro-youthful circulating factor. Systemic PF4 administration decreased age-related neuroinflammation, restored the aging peripheral immune system to a more youthful state, and improved hippocampal-dependent learning and memory in aged mice.
Project description:Inflammation is a realized detriment to brain health in a growing number of neurological diseases, but querying neuroinflammation in its cellular complexity remains a challenge. This manuscript aims to provide a reliable and accessible strategy for examining the brain’s immune system. We compare the efficacy of cell isolation methods in producing ample and pure immune samples from mouse brains. Then, with the high-input single-cell genomics platform PIPseq, we generate a rich neuroimmune dataset containing microglia and many peripheral immune populations. To demonstrate this strategy’s utility, we interrogate the well-established model of LPS-induced neuroinflammation with single-cell resolution. We demonstrate the activation of crosstalk between microglia and peripheral phagocytes and highlight the unique contributions of microglia and peripheral immune cells to neuroinflammation. Our approach enables the high-depth evaluation of inflammation in longstanding rodent models of neurological disease to reveal novel insight into the contributions of the immune system to brain health.
Project description:Background: Sleeping sickness is caused by the extracellular parasite Trypanosoma brucei and is associated with neuroinflammation and neuropsychiatric disorders, including disruption of sleep/wake patterns, and is now recognised as a circadian disorder. Sleeping sickness is traditionally studied using murine models of infection due to the lack of alternative in vitro systems that fully recapitulate the cellular diversity and functionality of the human brain. The aim of this study is to develop a much-needed in vitro system that reduces and replaces live animals for the study of infections in the central nervous system, using sleeping sickness as a model infection. Methods: We developed a co-culture system using induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC)-derived cortical human brain organoids and the human pathogen T. b. gambiense to model host-pathogen interactions in vitro. Upon co-culture, we analysed the transcriptional responses of the brain organoids to T. b. gambiense over two time points. Results: We detected broad transcriptional changes in brain organoids exposed to T. b. gambiense, mainly associated with innate immune responses, chemotaxis, and blood vessel differentiation compared to untreated organoids. Conclusions: Our co-culture system provides novel, more ethical avenues to study host-pathogen interactions in the brain as alternative models to experimental infections in mice. Although our data support the use of brain organoids to model host-pathogen interactions during T. brucei infection as an alternative to in vivo models, future work is required to increase the complexity of the organoids ( e.g., addition of microglia and vasculature). We envision that the adoption of organoid systems is beneficial to researchers studying mechanisms of brain infection by protozoan parasites. Furthermore, organoid systems have the potential to be used to study other parasites that affect the brain significantly reducing the number of animals undergoing moderate and/or severe protocols associated with the study of neuroinflammation and brain infections.
Project description:Immunesenescence contributes to systematic aging and participates in the pathogenesis of Alzheimer’s disease (AD). To define the potential of immune rejuvenation in AD therapy, we reconstituted the immune systems of aged APP/PS1 mice through bone marrow transplantation (BMT). Single cell RNA sequencing (ScRNA-seq) of peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) indicated that young BMT reverse the expression of aging- and AD-related genes in multiple cell types of PBMCs. Plasma proteome profiling also indicated the reduction of the plasma level of senescence-associated secretory phenotype (SASP) proteins after young BMT. Young BMT significantly reduced central and peripheral Aβ levels, alleviated brain Aβ plaque burden, neuronal degeneration, neuroinflammation, and behavioral deficits in the aged APP/PS1 mice. These effects occurred with the improved Aβ capacity of peripheral monocytes. Collectively, our study demonstrated that rejuvenation of immune system could decrease brain Aβ deposition and other AD-type pathologies, representing a potential therapeutic approach for AD.
Project description:Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is linked to depression and dementia in later life by inflammatory involvement of the central nervous system (CNS). Regional heterogeneity of brain immunophenotypes was described under homeostasis, but a topographical resolution of CNS immune responses in chronic peripheral inflammatory diseases like RA is missing. We demonstrate regional heterogeneity of CNS susceptibility to chronic peripheral inflammation in the human tumor necrosis factor α transgenic (TNFtg) mouse model of RA. TNFtg mice showed myeloid cell infiltration, microglial activation, and a mutual transcriptomic fingerprint of neuroinflammation in the cortex, striatum, and thalamus. Immune responses were minimal in the hippocampus and cerebellum. We demonstrate regional CNS immune responses to chronic peripheral inflammation, sparing the hippocampus and cerebellum and reversible by peripheral anti-inflammatory treatment. Targeting microenvironmental susceptibility or resilience of brain regions will help to prevent and treat RA-related neuropsychiatric comorbidity. RNA-sequencing was performed from five brain regions (cortex, striatum, thalamus, hippocampus, and cerebellum) from C57Bl6/J wild type mice and TNFtg mice (strain Tg197; kindly provided by George Kollias (Fleming Institute, Vari, Greece).
Project description:Sepsis-associated encephalopathy (SAE) is an acute cerebral dysfunction caused by sepsis. Neuroinflammation induced by sepsis is considered a potential mechanism of SAE; however, very little is known about the role of the meningeal lymphatic system in SAE. The aged mice with SAE showed a significant decrease in the drainage of OVA-647 into the dCLNs and the coverage of the Lyve-1 in the meningeal lymphatic, indicating that sepsis impaired meningeal lymphatic drainage and morphology. The meningeal lymphatic function of aged mice was more vulnerable to sepsis in comparison to young mice. Sepsis also decreased the protein levels of caspase-3 and PSD95, which was accompanied by reductions in the activity of hippocampal neurons. Microglia were significantly activated in the hippocampus of SAE mice, which was accompanied by an increase in neuroinflammation, as indicated by increases in interleukin-1 beta, interleukin-6 and Iba1 expression. Cognitive function was impaired in aged mice with SAE. However, the injection of AAV1-VEGF-C significantly increased coverage in the lymphatic system and tracer dye uptake in dCLNs, suggesting that AAV1-VEGF-C promotes meningeal lymphangiogenesis and drainage. Furthermore, AAV1-VEGF-C reduced microglial activation and neuroinflammation and improved cognitive dysfunction. Improvement of meningeal lymphatics also reduced sepsis-induced expression of disease-associated genes in aged mice. Pre-existing lymphatic dysfunction by ligating bilateral dCLNs aggravated sepsis-induced neuroinflammation and cognitive impairment.
Project description:Microglia maintain homeostasis in the brain. However, with age, they become primed and respond more strongly to inflammatory stimuli. We show here that microglia from aged mice upregulated mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR) complex 1 signaling regulating translation, as well as cytokine protein levels. Genetic ablation of mTOR signaling showed a dual, yet contrasting effect on microglia priming: it caused an NF-kB-dependent upregulation of priming genes at mRNA level; however, mice displayed reduced cytokine protein levels, diminished microglia activation and milder sickness behavior. The effect on translation was dependent on reduced phosphorylation of 4EBP1 and increased 4EBP1 expression, resulting in decreased binding of EIF4E to EIF4G. Similar changes were present in aged human microglia and in damage-associated microglia, indicating upregulation of mTOR-dependent translation is an essential step licensing microglia priming in ageing and neurodegeneration.