Traumatic brain injury induces TDP-43 mislocalization and neurodegenerative effects in tissue distal to the primary injury site in a non-transgenic mouse

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) initiates tissue and cellular damage to the brain that is immediately followed by secondary injury sequalae with delayed and continual damage. This secondary damage includes pathological processes that may contribute to chronic neurodegeneration and permanent functional and cognitive deficits. TBI is also associated with an increased risk of developing neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's disease (AD), frontotemporal dementia (FTD), and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) as indicated by shared pathological features. For example, abnormalities in the TAR DNA-binding Protein 43 (TDP-43) that includes cytoplasmic mislocalization, cytosolic aggregation, and an increase in phosphorylation and ubiquitination are seen in up to 50% of FTD cases, up to 70% of AD cases, and is considered a hallmark pathology of ALS occurring in > 97% of cases. Yet the prevalence of TDP-43 pathology post-TBI has yet to be fully characterized. Here, we employed a non-transgenic murine controlled cortical injury model of TBI and observed injury-induced hallmark TDP-43 pathologies in brain and spinal cord tissue distal to the primary injury site and did not include the focally damaged tissue within the primary cortical injury site. Analysis revealed a temporal-dependent and significant increase in neuronal TDP-43 mislocalization in the cortical forebrain rostral to and distant from the primary injury site up to 180 days post injury (DPI). TDP-43 mislocalization was also detected in neurons located in the ventral horns of the cervical spinal cord following a TBI. Moreover, a cortical layer-dependent affect was identified, increasing from superficial to deeper cortical layers over time from 7 DPI up to 180 DPI. Lastly, RNAseq analysis confirmed an injury-induced misregulation of several key biological processes implicated in neurons that increased over time. Collectively, this study demonstrates a connection between a single moderate TBI event and chronic neurodegenerative processes that are not limited to the primary injury site and broadly distributed throughout the cortex and corticospinal tract.