Mastication Affects Transcriptomes of Mouse Microglia.

Background/Aim: We investigated whether mastication affects microglia, whose activity is thought to be associated with cognition and brain tumor progression. Materials and Methods: We kept mice by feeding either a hard or soft diet for 2, 4 or 8 months. After each period, we removed the whole brains and isolated microglia. The total RNA extracted from each brain's microglia was subjected to DNA microarray analysis. Results: Many genes were found to be significantly differentially expressed between hard- and soft-diet-fed mice in each group of the same feeding period. The expression of several genes involved in the regulation of actin cytoskeleton was down-regulated in the soft-diet-fed mice. Conclusion: Mastication may affect microglia's roles in cognition as well as their neuroimmune activity through their activity of patrolling the brain.