Fig. 8

Effect of ɑ-syn pff injection on microglial gene expression. A Genes dysregulated by 1- and 3-months of ɑ-syn pff injection in young and aged mice were identified by DESeq2 (fold change ≥ 2, p < 0.05). The expression levels of the DEGs are represented as TpM normalized values for young mice in the upper row and for the aged mice in the lower row. The number of DEGs are indicated to the left of the heatmap. The top 3 pathways associated with each group were determined from ToppGene database as shown below the respective heatmaps. B RNA-Seq results were validated by qRT-PCR for selected candidates. Samples were analyzed in duplicate and expression levels were normalized against Gapdh. The mean and standard error are derived from combining all samples in a group. C3, Mmp8 and Lcn2 go up with ɑ-syn pff injection while Dlk1, Kif5a, Laurp1l, Gfap2 and Pagr1a go down with ɑ-syn pff injection as also observed in RNA-Seq results. The p-value from the t-test between PBS and ɑ-syn pff data is shown above the bar graphs. C Comparison of ɑ-syn pff-induced genes with age-associated genes in microglia. Genes that were up- or downregulated in response to ɑ-syn pff (X axis) were compared with genes up- (purple bars) or downregulated (orange bars) with age. Data shown is for young and aged mice as indicated 1or 3 months after ɑ-syn pff injection. The significance of overlap was confirmed by hypergeometric test. * p < 0.05; ** p < 0.01; *** p < 0.001