Cited by 83Neuroinflammation and Neurodegeneration MechanismsAlzheimer's disease research and treatmentsNeurological Disease Mechanisms and Treatments

Genome-wide RNAseq study of the molecular mechanisms underlying microglia activation in response to pathological tau perturbation in the rTg4510 tau transgenic animal model

Open access
Wang, Hong, Li, Yupeng, Ryder, John W., Hole, Justin T., Ebert, Philip J., Airey, David C., Qian, Hui-Rong, Logsdon, Benjamin +12 more·2018·Molecular Neurodegeneration

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Activation of microglia, the resident immune cells of the central nervous system, is a prominent pathological hallmark of Alzheimer's disease (AD). However, the gene expression changes underlying microglia activation in response to tau pathology remain elusive. Furthermore, it is not clear how murine gene expression changes relate to human gene expression networks. METHODS: Microglia cells were isolated from rTg4510 tau transgenic mice and gene expression was profiled using RNA sequencing. Four age groups of mice (2-, 4-, 6-, and 8-months) were analyzed to capture longitudinal gene expression changes that correspond to varying levels of pathology, from minimal tau accumulation to massive neuronal loss. Statistical and system biology approaches were used to analyze the genes and pathways that underlie microglia activation. Differentially expressed genes were compared to human brain co-expression networks. RESULTS: Statistical analysis of RNAseq data indicated that more than 4000 genes were differentially expressed in rTg4510 microglia compared to wild type microglia, with the majority of gene expression changes occurring between 2- and 4-months of age. These genes belong to four major clusters based on their temporal expression pattern. Genes involved in innate immunity were continuously up-regulated, whereas genes involved in the glutamatergic synapse were down-regulated. Up-regulated innate inflammatory pathways included NF-κB signaling, cytokine-cytokine receptor interaction, lysosome, oxidative phosphorylation, and phagosome. NF-κB and cytokine signaling were among the earliest pathways activated, likely driven by the RELA, STAT1 and STAT6 transcription factors. The expression of many AD associated genes such as APOE and TREM2 was also altered in rTg4510 microglia cells. Differentially expressed genes in rTg4510 microglia were enriched in human neurodegenerative disease associated pathways, including Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, and Huntington's diseases, and highly overlapped with the microglia and endothelial modules of human brain transcriptional co-expression networks. CONCLUSION: This study revealed temporal transcriptome alterations in microglia cells in response to pathological tau perturbation and provides insight into the molecular changes underlying microglia activation during tau mediated neurodegeneration.

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1186/s13024-018-0296-y

Cites

89 of 89 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Claims the paper makes

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

Self-check

Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.

The self-check needs the paper’s full text.

Cites

Flagged first, then by citations

Research works printed but not linked: 1

  1. [21]Kingwell K Neurodegenerative disease: microglia in early disease stages Nat Rev Neurol 2012 8 9 475 10.1038/nrneurol.2012.172 22890215 · DOI

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Authors
Wang, H., Li, Y., Ryder, J. W., Hole, J. T., Ebert, P. J., Airey, D. C., Qian, H.-R., Logsdon, B., Fisher, A., Ahmed, Z., Murray, T. K., Cavallini, A., Bose, S., Eastwood, B. J., Collier, D. A., Dage, J. L., Miller, B. B., Merchant, K. M., O’Neill, M. J., & Demattos, R. B.
Affiliations
  • Eli Lilly (United States) (US)
  • Sage Bionetworks (US)
  • Eli Lilly (United Kingdom) (GB)
  • AbbVie (Germany) (DE)
Corresponding author
Wang, Hong
Venue
Molecular Neurodegeneration
Published
2018-12
Volume
13
Issue
1
Pages
65-65
ISSN
1750-1326 (ISSN-L)
OpenAlex
W2905203258
Cited by
83
References
89
Citations by year
2026: 1 · 2025: 6 · 2024: 16 · 2023: 10 · 2022: 7 · 2021: 16 · 2020: 16 · 2019: 10 · 2018: 1
FWCI
4.82
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • Molecular Neurodegeneration (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion, other-oa)
  • PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
Funders
National Institute on Aging (P30AG10161, R01AG36836, R01AG15819, R01AG17917, U01AG46152, R01AG30146, U01AG32984)
Topics
  • Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Neurology › Neuroinflammation and Neurodegeneration Mechanisms
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Physiology › Alzheimer's disease research and treatments
  • Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Neurology › Neurological Disease Mechanisms and Treatments
Keywords
microglial activation, tau pathology, Alzheimer's disease, rTg4510 mice, microglial transcriptome, temporal gene expression, NF-κB signaling, innate immunity, cytokine signaling, glutamatergic synapses, apolipoprotein E, TREM2, neurodegeneration, Parkinson's disease, Huntington's disease
MeSH terms
Alzheimer Disease, Animals, Brain, Disease Models, Animal, Mice, Transgenic, Gene Expression, tau Proteins, Microglia, Genetic Predisposition to Disease, Gene Regulatory Networks

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review