Project description:Recombinant adeno-associated virus (AAV) is the leading platform for gene therapy in ocular disease. Progress for gene therapy has been hindered by AAV-induced inflammation, which limits dose escalation and long-term efficacy. Characterisation of the ocular immune response to AAV in mice has been restricted to young animals and demonstrate activation of microglia, antigen presentation and a dominant T cell lymphocyte infiltration. The extent of the inflammatory response alters with age and sex and these factors have not been fully represented in the pre-clinical development of ocular AAV gene therapies. Here, we intravitreally inject a null AAV2 vector in young (3-month), middle aged (9-month) and old (18-month) Cx3cr1-creER:R26tdTomato+/- mice of both sexes. Applying clinical imaging, flow cytometric analyses and bulk-sequencing of sorted resident microglia we interrogate the impact of sex and age on the longitudinal response of both microglia and infiltrating cellular response to AAV. Young animals have a dynamic response, with a peak in inflammation at D10-12 and signs of clinical resolution by D28. Despite similar kinetics in the inflammatory response between young male and females, sex differences are observed in the magnitude of the transcriptional response by microglia and the adaptive component of the infiltrating response. With age, the inflammation increases and persists after AAV2 injection. Based on the microglia transcriptional response to AAV, males maintain similar signature across age, although enhanced with increasing age. Contrary, females have greater divergence in their inflammatory response across age. Of particular note, old females have enriched cellular stress and inflammatory microglia gene signatures, with corresponding retinal degeneration. These findings inform crucial sex and age differences for therapeutic application of ocular gene therapy. Our dataset highlight the need to further define these differences to appropriately tackle AAV immunogenicity for all populations.
Project description:The principal aim of this work was to investigate the methylation profiles of specific ocular tissues, and compare this profile to matched peripheral blood. Matched human blood and eye tissue were obtained post-mortem (n=8) and DNA methylation profiling performed on blood, neurosensory retina, retinal pigment epithelium (RPE)/choroid and optic nerve tissue using the Illumina Infinium HumanMethylation450 platform.
Project description:Objective: To evaluate if the inflammatory proteomics of uterine fluid could define the endometrial receptivity phase. Methods: Inflammatory proteomics of uterine fluid were measured using the OLINK Target-96 Inflammation panel. Endometrial receptivity testing (ERT) combined with endometrial dating was a gold standard for defining the endometrial receptivity phase. A predictive model based on proteomics of uterine fluid was established to predict the endometrial receptivity phase. Results: The inflammatory factors in uterine fluid were differentially expressed between window of implantation (WOI) and displaced WOI groups, and the displaced WOI group was characterized by the increased expression of a variety of inflammatory factors. The predictive model established based on the top 5 differential proteins could accurately classify the endometrial receptive phase. Transcriptomic data from endometrial tissues showed that the differential gene sets between different receptive phases were mostly enriched in immune-related processes, and the expression of immune-related genes in the WOI group was significantly lower than that in the displaced WOI group. Conclusions: Detection of inflammatory proteins from the uterine fluid using the OLINK inflammation panel could be a novel non-invasive method to define the endometrial receptive phase. The inflammatory immune response during the embryo implantation window was inhibited to adapt to the implantation of the semi-alloimmune embryos.