Hippocampal transcriptome of an experimental model of pneumoccocal meningitis and neonatal overfeeding

Pneumococcal meningitis (PM) is a severe disease caused by Streptococcus pneumoniae and is known to induce apoptotic neuronal and progenitor cell death in the hippocampal dentate gyrus (DG), leading to subsequent cognitive impairment. Activated microglia are pivotal in the neuroinflammatory processes associated with PM-induced hippocampal damage. While it is well known that neonatal nutrition programming can have lasting effects on health, the impact of early-life overfeeding on the host response to neuroinfections remains uncertain. This study aimed to investigate whether neonatal overfeeding influences the outcome of PM in the hippocampus (HC). Overfeeding was induced by adjusting litter size immediately after birth. At the eleventh day of life, rats were intracisternally injected with pneumococcus or saline, followed by euthanasia after 24 hours for brain dissection.