Figure 5.

Microglial activation followed with morphological transformation during diabetes. Iba-1 immunohistochemical analysis of STZ-induced diabetic and control animals revealed the gradual microglial activation in the cerebellum of the diabetic animal upto 12 weeks (B–G) with having thick and reduced processes and irregular darkly stained cell body. While in controls (A) the microglia were in resting phase with thin and more number of processes and round cell body. Insets were showing the magnified images of Iba-1 expressing cells exhibiting the resting (A) and activated (B–G) morphology in cerebellum. Scale bar = 50 μm. Cell quantitation (i) and area fraction (ii) graphs were showing the diabetes associated elevation in the number of microglia and volumetric fraction from 2nd week onwards in comparison to controls. The increment in microglia population is indicative of proliferation following diabetes in cerebellum. Same alphabets on bars indicate non-significant differences between groups at the given time points (p ≤ 0.001). Value represents mean ± s.e.m. of the 30 readings/ animal/ time point. ^*p ≤ 0.01, ^**p ≤ 0.001 for comparison of diabetic group with the respective controls.