Transcriptional profiling of young and old mouse macrophages interacting with nanoparticles [scRNA-seq]

The mononuclear phagocytic system is integral to the clearance of nanotherapeutics. However, the precise mechanisms involved in the phagocytic clearance of nanotherapeutics, and how age-associated changes in innate immune cells affect this clearance, are poorly understood. We found that the ability of professional phagocytes to take up nanoparticles diminishes with age. Bulk RNA sequencing of bone marrow derived macrophages and single cell RNA sequencing of liver macrophages derived from young and old mice was carried out to investigate the gene expression changes that may be assiciated with the changed ability of macrophages to uptake nanoparticles. Overall design: We extracted RNA from bone marrow derived macrophages of young and old C57BL6 background mice and perfrom bulk RNA sequencing to compare the gene expression differences. We injected nanoparticles intravenously to young and old C57BL6 background mice and perform single-cell RNA sequencing of the enriched liver macrophages.