snRNAseq- Neuroectodermal IL-12R signaling in neuroinflammation/EAE

Unsupervised clustering of these data identified clusters that were assigned to diverse neuronal, glial and other cell types on the basis of known lineage marker genes. This allowed us to assess how the transcriptional profile of the neuroectoderm differed in the presence or absence of IL-12 receptor signaling by interrogating differentially expressed genes (DEGs). This revealed pronounced alterations particularly in excitatory neurons, granule cells, mature oligodendrocytes (MOLs) and myelin forming oligodendrocytes (MOLs1) suggesting a specific/concentrated action of IL-12 on these populations in the inflamed CNS.

Our data suggest IL-12 to be critically involved in neuroprotection and shaping the trophic factor milieu within the inflamed CNS. Conversely, dysregulation or loss of trophic factor release by neurons in the absence of IL-12 may further propagate the degeneration of neurons, oligodendrocytes and possibly other cell types. Sequencing raw data and processed gene expression data will be deposited into the GEO repository upon publication.

Code for analyses will be available upon contacting the corresponding authors: becher@immunology.uzh.ch and mundt@immunology.uzh.ch