Spatiotemporal patterns of gliosis and neuroinflammation in presenilin 1/2 conditional double knockout mice

Increasing evidence indicates that neuroinflammation contributes to and exacerbates the pathogenesis of Alzheimer’s disease (AD). Neuroinflammation is thought to be primarily driven by glial cells (microglia and astrocytes) and escalates with neurodegenerative progression in AD. However, the spatiotemporal change patterns of glial reactivity and neuroinflammatory response during different stages of neurodegeneration, especially early in disease, remain unknown. Here we found that gliosis and the up-regulation of substantial neuroinflammatory genes were primarily initiated in the cortex of presenilin 1/2 conditional double knockout (cDKO) mice, rather than in the hippocampus. Specifically, astrocyte activation preceding microglial activation was found in the somatosensory cortex (SS) of cDKO mice at 6 weeks of age. Over time, both astrocyte and microglial activation were found in the whole cortex, and age-related increases in gliosis activation were more pronounced in the cortex compared to hippocampus. Moreover, the age-associated increase in glial activation was accompanied by a gradual increase in the expression of cell chemokines Ccl3 and Ccl4, complement related factors C1qb, C3 and C4, and lysosomal proteases cathepsin S and Z. These findings suggest that astrocyte and microglial activation with a concurrent increase in inflammatory mediators such as chemokines might be an early event and contribute to the pathogenesis of neurodegeneration due to presenilin deficiency.