ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Immunol.
Sec. Multiple Sclerosis and Neuroimmunology
This article is part of the Research TopicThe chicken or egg conundrum: ‘Immune dysregulation and gut dysbiosis in aging’View all 4 articles
An integrated analysis of spinal cord transcriptome and gut microbiome unravel age-associated host-microbiome interactions following spinal cord injury
Provisionally accepted
- China Rehabilitation Research Center, Capital Medical University, Beijing, China
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Background:Spinal cord injury (SCI) leads to irreversible neurological deficits, with emerging evidence highlighting the pivotal regulatory role of gut microbiota in neural repair through the bidirectional gut-brain axis. This study investigates age-related differences in SCI progression by longitudinally profiling multi-omics signatures in young versus aged mice, integrating spinal cord transcriptomics with gut microbiome analysis. Methods: A traumatic SCI model was established at the thoracic level 10 in mice. The gut microbiota was analyzed through 16S rRNA sequencing. Spinal cord gene expression was profiled using transcriptome sequencing. Correlation analysis was performed to evaluate associated between gut microbiota shifts and differential cytokines expression. Results: Aging significantly altered spinal cord gene expression profiles after SCI, KEGG pathway analysis revealed that differentially expressed genes (DEGs) in young and aged SCI mice were highly similar, predominantly involving immune and inflammatory response pathways.The age-dependent upregulation of inflammatory cytokines were observed under both sham and post-SCI conditions. Additionally, aging was associated with distinct shifts in gut microbiota composition across different phases of SCI. The abundance of certain bacterial genera, such as Lactobacillus and Dubosiella, which was significantly reduced in the acute phase, continued to decline in an age-dependent manner during the chronic phase. Correlation analysis indicated that alterations in the abundance of the gut microbiota were closely associated with variations in spinal cord inflammatory cytokine levels. Conclusion: This study delineates host-microbiome interactions in SCI and sheds light on potential mechanisms underlying age-related impairment of neural repair capacity.
Keywords: gut microbiome, immune response, neurological recovery, spinal cord injury, Spinal cord transcriptome
Received: 30 Mar 2025; Accepted: 09 Feb 2026.
Copyright: © 2026 Jing, BAI, Li, Wang, Li, Liu, Zhang, Gao and Yan. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Yu Yan
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