Transcriptomic profiling of microglia from a model of Experimental Cerebral Malaria Transcriptomic profiling of microglia from a model of Experimental Cerebral Malaria

Cerebral malaria is a pathology involving inflammation in the brain. There are many immune cell types activated during this process, but there is little information on the contribution of microglia, the brain resident macrophages, to this severe complication. We have examined the responses of microglia in a model of experimental cerebral malaria (ECM), in which C57BL/6 mice are infected with Plasmodium berghei ANKA. Genome wide transcriptomic analysis of these cells revealed that thousands of transcripts were differentially expressed at two different time points during the infection. The analysis indicated that proliferation of microglia was a dominant feature before the onset of ECM, and supporting this, we observed an increase in numbers of these cells in the brain. When cerebral malaria symptoms were manifest, genes involved in immune responses and chemokine production were upregulated, which were possibly driven by Type I Interferon. Together, our data offer a unique insight into the responses of microglia in the brain during ECM. Total RNA obtained from isolated microlgia from brains of Plasmodium berghei ANKA infected mice, 5 and 7 days post infection, compared to their uninfected controls