Traumatic brain injury results in unique microglial and astrocyte transcriptomes enriched for type I interferon response

In this study, we performed bulk RNA sequencing of concurrently isolated microglia and astrocytes to evaluate their cell-specific transcriptional responses to TBI 7 days post-injury. Our findings revealed sustained, cell-specific transcriptional changes in both microglia and astrocytes, with microglia showing a greater transcriptional response than astrocytes at this subacute timepoint. The microglia and astrocyte transcriptional response to TBI was unique from other neurodegenerative and neuroinflammatory diseases that have been described. In addition, microglia and astrocytes showed overlapping enrichment for genes related to type I interferon signaling and MHC class I antigen presentation. Overall design: Astrocytes and microglia were FACs isolated from mouse forebrain 7 days following traumatic brain injury or sham control (n=5 FPI, n=5 sham). Gene expression changes were evaluated using RNA-seq.