Microglia-derived extracellular vesicles attenuate acute a-synuclein induced astrocyte inflammation

Aggregates of misfolded α-synuclein (Syn) and neuroinflammation are pathological features of Parkinson’s disease (PD). These, misfolded conformations of Syn promote cytokine and chemokine signaling in the surrounding microenvironment by triggering activation of glial cells through pattern recognition receptors. Microglia and astrocytes act as innate mediators of the neuroimmune response in the brain by regulating inflammatory signaling via paracrine and autocrine forms of cell communication. Extracellular vesicles (EVs) represent a form of glial cell to cell communication that can regulate the glial neuroimmune responses depending on the phenotype of the donor cell. Research has shown that the contents of EVs can be altered via pharmacologically altering the donor cell which offers a potential avenue for the regulation of inflammation. As such, we analyzed enriched mouse cortical primary astrocytes and characterized their response to Syn exposure in the absence and presence of microglia-derived EVs. Using trans-resveratrol, a naturally occurring polyphenol implicated for its anti-inflammatory properties, as our pharmacological agent to generate an anti-inflammatory microglial-derived EV phenotype we found that EVs derived from resveratrol-treated microglia decreased the production of proinflammatory molecules in enriched astrocytes exposed to Syn. Sequencing of EV miRNAs revealed two miRNAs (miR-5099 and miR-115) with significant up-regulation in resveratrol EVs compared to control EVs. Astrocytes transfected with corresponding miRNA mimics prior to Syn exposure showed a dramatic decrease in inflammatory biomarker production. These findings show that microglia-derived EVs and their specific miRNA cargo can attenuate Syn-directed inflammation in astrocytes and may serve as a novel therapeutic for proteinopathies like PD.