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Background: Microglia, the innate immune cells of the central nervous system (CNS), are the first cellular responders to stroke. Microglia populate the brain during development and age throughout the life of the individual. With aging, microglia transition to an activated, pro-inflammatory phenotype, making them primed to respond in a malicious manner following an ischemic event. These primed microglia are the same cells that populated the brain during development but now have an altered gene expression profile due to the inflammaging environment (e.g. cell damage, inflammatory cytokine milieu). Cells, including microglia, may respond to inflammaging by altering their epigenetic landscape to ultimately result in changes in gene expression.

Hypothesis: We hypothesized that epigenetic mechanisms are responsible for the changes observed in microglia gene expression with aging, and that by definition these …