TLR7-induced murine inflammation results in a global neuroinflammatory response driving neural circuit-specific transcriptomic changes.

Overview

1. School of Infection & Immunity, College of Medical, Veterinary and Life Sciences, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, G12 8QQ UK
2. School of Psychology & Neuroscience, College of Medical, Veterinary and Life Sciences, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, G12 8QQ UK
3. School of Cancer Sciences, College of Medical, Veterinary and Life Sciences, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, G12 8QQ UK

Abstract

Interactions between the brain and immune system play a key role in the aetiology of brain disorders, with inflammation emerging as a potential causal factor in subsets of major depressive disorder, particularly those resistant to treatment. The mechanisms through which immune activation might drive depressive symptoms remain elusive, limiting the ability to develop new targeted therapies. Using a mouse model of neuroinflammation, involving a TLR7/8 agonist, we combined whole-brain and spatial transcriptomics approaches to determine whether TLR7/8-driven neuroinflammation resulted in consistent immune and neurobiological transcriptional changes throughout the brain. We found evidence of strong immune activation throughout the brain,. and this global inflammatory signal led to regionally specific changes in gene expression. In particular, we found reduced expression of genes associated with synaptic function in brain areas underlying mood and anxiety, such as ventral striatum and amygdala.

Supplementary Information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1038/s41598-026-51581-0.

Reproduced under the paper's license (CC BY), from the paper cited above.

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Data

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Data availability

The datasets generated and analysed during the current study are available in the following: ENA repository for Bulk RNA sequencing dataset [ accession number – ERA35055600; Bulk RNA seq samples: ERS26980338, ERS26980339, ERS26980340, ERS26980341, ERS26980342, ERS26980343, ERS26980344, ERS26980345, ERS26980346, ERS26980347]; The CosMx spatial transcriptomic dataset is available on University’s data repository on: [http://dx.doi.org/10.5525/gla.researchdata.2076.](http:/dx.doi.org/10.5525/gla.researchdata.2076.) The code is available at [https://github.com/RobinCarvajal/cosmx\_ca](https:/github.com/RobinCarvajal/cosmx_cavanagh) vanagh and [https://github.com/RobinCarvajal/SubsetMask](https:/github.com/RobinCarvajal/SubsetMask).

Reproduced under the paper's license (CC BY), from the paper cited above.

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Version 1, 28 September 2026: the first record

Recorded: type, language, journal, volume, issue, pages, dates, 11 authors, 15 keywords, 18 MeSH terms, 1 funder, 67 references.

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This paper

Gardner-Stephen, K., Carvajal-Quisilema, R. J., Andrianova, L., McGonigal, R., Sharma, D., Barrie, J. A., Saathoff, M., Cole, J. J., Jamieson, N. B., Craig, M. T., & Cavanagh, J. T. (2026). TLR7-induced murine inflammation results in a global neuroinflammatory response driving neural circuit-specific transcriptomic changes. Scientific reports, 16(1), 22896. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-026-51581-0

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