Altered Neuroinflammatory Transcriptomic Profile in the Hippocampal Dentate Gyrus Three Weeks After Lateral Fluid Percussion Injury in Rats.

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is a major source of disability worldwide, with cognitive and memory deficits being pervasive after injury. The hippocampus, a major structure involved in learning and memory, is particularly vulnerable to TBI, and cellular dysfunction within the hippocampal dentate gyrus is believed to be a major contributor to cognitive deficits after TBI. However, there is little known about the transcriptomic changes occurring directly within the dentate gyrus at subacute-to-chronic timepoints after TBI. To address this, we performed bulk RNA sequencing and single-nucleus RNA sequencing of the isolated dentate gyrus three weeks after lateral fluid percussion injury in male rats. We report here that there is evidence of an ongoing neuroinflammatory response marked by increased neuroinflammatory genes that implicate various neuroinflammatory pathways that are associated with a subset of microglia and astrocyte populations.