Modular neuroinflammatory network discovery from large-scale phenotypic screening in genetically heterogeneous mice [part14]

The central nervous system represents a uniquely immune-privileged environment, with inflammatory responses involving several resident CNS-specific cell types. While stereotyped cellular and transcriptional responses recur across varied diseases, relevant signaling pathways and regulatory networks are not fully understood. Here, we describe a screening platform based on high-throughput RNA-seq analysis and glial cell state gene set scores that enables multimodal investigation of inflammatory networks at scale. As proof-of-concept, we investigate genetically heterogeneous mice from a large-scale chemical mutagenesis screen to identify novel functionally relevant variants in six genes previously linked to human CNS disorders: Nrros, Ctsd, Smpd1, Idua, Nlrp1a, and Inpp5d . We leverage the rich and readily-interpretable data from our study to demarcate distinct inflammatory states arising from each mutation. In all, our work provides a methodology for discovering novel regulators of CNS neuroimmune homeostasis and provides a validated analysis framework for identifying discrete neuroinflammatory modules that are engaged divergently across disease contexts.