- Title
- Neonatal Chlamydia muridarum respiratory infection causes neuroinflammation within the brainstem during the early postnatal period
- Creator
- Hedley, Kateleen E.; Gomez, Henry M.; Kecelioglu, Eda; Carroll, Olivia R.; Jobling, Phillip; Horvat, Jay C.; Tadros, Melissa A.
- Relation
- Journal of Neuroinflammation Vol. 21, no. 158
- Publisher Link
- http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12974-024-03150-3
- Publisher
- Biomed Central (BMC)
- Resource Type
- journal article
- Date
- 2024
- Description
- Respiratory infections are one of the most common causes of illness and morbidity in neonates worldwide. In the acute phase infections are known to cause wide-spread peripheral inflammation. However, the inflammatory consequences to the critical neural control centres for respiration have not been explored. Utilising a well characterised model of neonatal respiratory infection, we investigated acute responses within the medulla oblongata which contains key respiratory regions. Neonatal mice were intranasally inoculated within 24 h of birth, with either Chlamydia muridarum or sham-infected, and tissue collected on postnatal day 15, the peak of peripheral inflammation. A key finding of this study is that, while the periphery appeared to show no sex-specific effects of a neonatal respiratory infection, sex had a significant impact on the inflammatory response of the medulla oblongata. There was a distinct sex-specific response in the medulla coincident with peak of peripheral inflammation, with females demonstrating an upregulation of anti-inflammatory cytokines and males showing very few changes. Microglia also demonstrated sex-specificity with the morphology of females and males differing based upon the nuclei. Astrocytes showed limited changes during the acute response to neonatal infection. These data highlight the strong sex-specific impact of a respiratory infection can have on the medulla in the acute inflammatory phase.
- Subject
- medulla oblongata; cytokines; microglia; astrocytes; sex-specific
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/1518728
- Identifier
- uon:57362
- Identifier
- ISSN:1742-2094
- Rights
- x
- Language
- eng
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