Transcriptional profiling of 5 days post LPC lesion after microglia ablation

Following all types of neurological injury, resident macrophages are activated locally, and blood-derived macrophages are recruited. Distinguishing the role of resident and blood-derived macrophages is complicated by the difficulty in distinguishing between these cell types because they mostly express the same molecular markers in a diseased state. To begin to understand the complexity of functions of resident and blood-derived macrophages following acute injury in the central nervous system (CNS) we ablated microglia, but not infiltrating macrophages, to determine their contribution following lysolecithin-induced demyelination . RNAseq experiment was performed on LCM collected tissue from CX3CR1CreER; Rosa-iDTR mice or CX3CR1CreER; Rosa-wt controls. Mice received tamoxifent for three days (~12-15) and then LPC demyelination of the ventral spinal cord 4-6 weeks later. Mice recieved daily diphtheria toxin injections until 5 days post-LPC when spinal cords were collected. Lesion tissue or distal control tissue was microdissected in microglia ablated and control mice. We have 3 control groups and 4 microglia ablated groups each containing 3-5 pooled mice.