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Age and Sex Influence the Hippocampal Response and Recovery Following Sepsis

ABSTRACT: Although in-hospital mortality rates for sepsis have decreased, survivors often experience lasting physical and cognitive deficits. Moreover, older adults are more vulnerable to long-term complications associated with sepsis. We employed a murine model to examine the influence of age and sex on the brain’s response and recovery following sepsis. Young (~4 months) and old (~20 months) mice (C57BL/6) of both sexes underwent cecal ligation and puncture (CLP) with restraint stress. The hippocampal transcriptome was examined in age and sex-matched controls at 1 and 4 days post-CLP. In general, immune and stress-related genes increased while neuronal, synaptic, and glial genes decreased one day after CLP-induced sepsis. However, specific age and sex differences were observed for the initial responsiveness to sepsis as well as the rate of recovery examined on day 4. Young females exhibited a muted transcriptional response relative to young males and old females. Old females exhibited a robust shift in gene transcription on day 1 and, while most genes recovered, genes linked to neurogenesis and myelination continued to be downregulated by day 4. In contrast, old males exhibited a more delayed or prolonged response to sepsis, such that neuronal and synaptic genes continued to decrease while immune response genes continued to increase on day 4. These results suggest that aging is associated with delayed recovery from sepsis, which is particularly evident in males.

ORGANISM(S): Mus musculus

PROVIDER: GSE128925 | GEO | 2019/07/22

REPOSITORIES: GEO

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Project description:Microglia, the brain’s principal immune cells, have been implicated in the pathogenesis of Alzheimer’s disease (AD), a condition shown to affect more females than males. Although sex differences in microglial function and transcriptomic programming have been described across development and in disease models of AD, no studies have comprehensively identified the sex divergences that emerge in the aging mouse hippocampus. Further, existing models of AD generally develop pathology (amyloid plaques and tau tangles) early in life and fail to recapitulate the aged brain environment associated with late-onset AD. Here, we examined and compared the transcriptomic and translatomic sex effects in young and old murine hippocampal microglia. Hippocampal tissue from C57BL6/N and microglial NuTRAP mice of both sexes were collected at young (5-6 month-old [mo]) and old (22-25 mo) ages. Cell sorting and affinity purification techniques were used to isolate the microglial transcriptome and translatome for RNA-sequencing and differential expression analyses. Flow cytometry, qPCR, and imaging approaches were used to confirm the transcriptomic findings. There were marginal sex differences identified in the young hippocampal microglia, with most differentially expressed genes (DEGs) restricted to the sex chromosomes. Both sex chromosomally- and autosomally-encoded sex differences emerged with aging. These sex DEGs identified at old age were primarily female-biased and enriched in senescent and disease-associated microglial signatures. Pathway analyses identified upstream regulators induced to a greater extent in females than in males, including inflammatory mediators IFNG, TNF, and IL1B, as well as AD-risk genes TREM2 and APP. These data suggest that female microglia adopt disease-associated and senescent phenotypes in the aging mouse hippocampus, even in the absence of disease pathology, to a greater extent than males. This sexually divergent microglial phenotype may explain the difference in susceptibility and disease progression in the case of AD pathology. Future studies will need to explore sex differences in microglial heterogeneity in response to AD pathology and determine how sex-specific regulators (i.e., sex chromosomal or hormonal) elicit these sex effects.

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Age and Sex Influence the Hippocampal Response and Recovery Following Sepsis

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