ArticleCell death and differentiation2026
PLIN2-PGAM5-regulated lipid droplet-mitochondria contacts drive microglial neuroinflammation after spinal cord injury via fatty acid metabolic reprogramming.
Article in Cell death and differentiation, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
0 citing papers in PubMed.
No citing paper in PubMed yet.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
15 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Persistent neuroinflammation is a hallmark of central nervous system (CNS) injury, driving neuronal loss and functional deficits. While microglial lipid metabolic reprogramming, particularly lipid droplet accumulation, has been implicated in chronic inflammation, the underlying mechanisms remain poorly understood. Using single-cell transcriptomics, we identified a previously defined lipid droplet-accumulating microglia (LDAM) subpopulation in spinal cord injury (SCI), characterized by elevated PLIN2 expression. Genetic deletion of Plin2 markedly reduced lipid droplet burden, attenuated neuroinflammation, and promoted neuronal survival and functional recovery in vivo. Mechanistically, PLIN2 interacts with the mitochondrial outer membrane protein PGAM5 to regulate lipid droplet-mitochondria contacts. This interaction inverts canonical metabolic flux by redirecting fatty acids from mitochondria back to lipid droplets, thereby suppressing β-oxidation and inducing mitochondrial dysfunction, which subsequently triggers STING-dependent inflammation. Notably, the PLIN2 220-392 domain is essential for PGAM5 binding and contact formation; disrupting this interaction attenuates STING signaling and enhances neuroprotection and functional recovery in vivo. Our findings identify the PLIN2-PGAM5 as a critical metabolic-immune pathway and suggest that targeting organelle-contact-mediated metabolic reprogramming represents a potential therapeutic strategy for CNS injury.
Identifiers
42498720What Socratic holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the Socratic graph.