C02 - In vivo detection and targeting of neuroenergetic checkpoints determining neuronal resilience and function during CNS inflammation

https://rdp.sfb274.de/ (Research Data Platform) https://gepris.dfg.de/gepris/projekt/408885537 (DFG Gepris entry) The central nervous system (CNS) is a terminally differentiated tissue, where any insult carries a heightened risk - yet the tissue response to these insults is variable and can range from irreversible destruction to almost complete recovery. The rules that instruct these divergent outcomes are still unknown. The aim of this CRC is therefore to understand the biology of the multicellular ...

Multiple sclerosis (MS) involves the infiltration of autoreactive T cells into the CNS, yet we lack a comprehensive understanding of the signaling pathways that regulate this process. Here, we conducted a genome-wide in vivo CRISPR screen in a rat MS model and identified 5 essential brakes and 18 essential facilitators of T cell migration to the CNS. While the transcription factor ETS1 limits entry to the CNS by controlling T cell responsiveness, three functional modules, centered around the ...

Cortical pathology contributes to chronic cognitive impairment of patients suffering from the neuroinflammatory disease multiple sclerosis (MS). How such gray matter inflammation affects neuronal structure and function is not well understood. In the present study, we use functional and structural in vivo imaging in a mouse model of cortical MS to demonstrate that bouts of cortical inflammation disrupt cortical circuit activity coincident with a widespread, but transient, loss of dendritic spines. ...

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is an inflammatory neurological disease of the central nervous system with a subclinical phase preceding frank neuroinflammation. CD8+ T cells are abundant within MS lesions, but their potential role in disease pathology remains unclear. Using high-throughput single-cell RNA sequencing and single-cell T cell receptor analysis, we compared CD8+ T cell clones from the blood and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) of monozygotic twin pairs in which the cotwin had either no or subclinical ...

Inflammation in the central nervous system can impair the function of neuronal mitochondria and contributes to axon degeneration in the common neuroinflammatory disease multiple sclerosis (MS). Here we combine cell-type-specific mitochondrial proteomics with in vivo biosensor imaging to dissect how inflammation alters the molecular composition and functional capacity of neuronal mitochondria. We show that neuroinflammatory lesions in the mouse spinal cord cause widespread and persisting axonal ...

To study the effect of the Grk2 or Ets1 KOs in rat and human CD4+ T cells, in vivo or in vitro respectively, we generated KO CD4+ T cell lines by CRISPR-RNP nucleofection (with an gRNA targeting the gene locus) or control (with a non-targeting gRNA) 3' bulk RNAseq was conducted on CD4+ T-MBP rat cells isolated form spleen or spinal cord parenchyma three days after co-transfer of control and KO cells into the animal. Cells were FACS sorted based on their fluorescent protein reporters, BFP for ...

To study the regulation of candidate genes from our study in human cells, we analyzed CD4+ T cells from blood and CSF of MA patients and age and sex matched idiopathic intracranial hypertension controls We analyzed 40845 cells in control blood, 807 cells in control CSF, 29749 cells in MS blood and 15768 cells in MS CSF. Analysis of overlapping TCR sequences in blood and CSF CD4+ T cells of the same transcript, transcriptomic characterization of the cell clusters and analysis of the behaviour of ...

To identify genes driving encephalitogenic CD4+ T cell migration into the CNS, we performed a genome-wide CRISPR screen and a subsequent validation screen. For the genome-wide CRISPR screen, up to 4 sgRNA per gene and 800 non targeted controls were included, for a total of 87690 individual sgRNAs, and for the validation screen, up to 6 sgRNA per gene and 241 non targeted controls for a total of 12000 individual sgRNAs. Comparison of sgRNA distribution by pairwise comparisons across blood, spleen, ...

RNA-seq of sorted cells from brain of Cortical MS mouse treated with vehicle or CSF1R inhibitor

CD8+ T cells from PBMCs of the MS twin cohort (n = 12; 6 healthy twins, 6 twins with SCNI, and 12 twins with MS; 193,771 cells) and the validation cohort (n = 17; 5 individuals with IIH and 12 individuals with MS; 89,859 cells) were isolated via FACS and processed using the 10X manufacturer's protocol to generate single-cell transcriptome and TCR libraries. The corresponding TCR sequences are included within the metadata of the uploaded objects. (Author states that fastq raw data files from humans ...

Inflammation in the central nervous system (CNS) can impair the function of neuronal mitochondria and contributes to axon degeneration in the common neuroinflammatory disease multiple sclerosis (MS). Here we combine cell type-specific mitochondrial proteomics with in vivo biosensor imaging to dissect how inflammation alters the molecular composition and functional capacity of neuronal mitochondria. Neuroinflammatory lesions in the mouse spinal cord cause widespread and persisting axonal ATP ...