Single-cell analysis of cerebrospinal fluid reveals common features of neuroinflammation.

Neuroinflammation is often characterized by immune cell infiltrates in the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF). Here, we apply single-cell RNA sequencing to explore the functional characteristics of these cells in patients with various inflammatory, infectious, and non-inflammatory neurological disorders. We show that CSF is distinct from the peripheral blood in terms of both cellular composition and gene expression.

Expression profiling of cerebrospinal fluid identifies dysregulated antiviral mechanisms in multiple sclerosis.

Despite the overwhelming evidence that multiple sclerosis is an autoimmune disease, relatively little is known about the precise nature of the immune dysregulation underlying the development of the disease. Reasoning that the CSF from patients might be enriched for cells relevant in pathogenesis, we have completed a high-resolution single-cell analysis of 96 732 CSF cells collected from 33 patients with multiple sclerosis (n = 48 675) and 48 patients with other neurological diseases (n = 48 057). Completing comprehensive cell type annotation, we identified a rare population of CD8+ T cells, characterized by the upregulation of inhibitory receptors, increased in patients with multiple sclerosis.

ADAMS project: a genetic Association study in individuals from Diverse Ancestral backgrounds with Multiple Sclerosis based in the UK.

Purpose: Genetic studies of multiple sclerosis (MS) susceptibility and severity have focused on populations of European ancestry. Studying MS genetics in other ancestral groups is necessary to determine the generalisability of these findings. The genetic Association study in individuals from Diverse Ancestral backgrounds with Multiple Sclerosis (ADAMS) project aims to gather genetic and phenotypic data on a large cohort of ancestrally-diverse individuals with MS living in the UK.