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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2018 Aug 20.
Published in final edited form as: Nat Neurosci. 2018 Feb 20;21(3):329–340. doi: 10.1038/s41593-018-0083-7

Figure 3. In early disease recovery, there is an abundant increase in the number of microglia and a change in their morphology.

Figure 3

(a–c) When the transgene is turned off, the hTDP-43 (green) begins to clear from the lumbar SC beginning at 3 days after DOX introduction (a), with most clearance happening after 1 week (b), and the hTDP-43 being totally cleared from all SC neurons by 8 weeks (c). Concurrent with this clearance, there is a dramatic increase in the number of IBA-1+ microglia (red), which peaks at 1 week on DOX (d) and then returns to baseline levels, despite no change in the number of MNs (d–f). After 1 week of transgene suppression, the microglia also have a reactive morphology, with significantly larger cell bodies (h) and shorter, thicker processes (i).(g–i) Individual data points shown with black circles with group means ± S.D. shown to the right in red. Labels “cntrl” are for rNLS8 mice maintained on DOX (n=5), “Disease” are for rNLS mice that were 6 weeks off DOX (n=5), and “Recovery” are rNLS8 mice that were off DOX for 6 weeks and then on DOX for 1 week (n=6). Analyses by one way ANOVA, (g) F2,14=307.5, *p=0.02, ***p<0.001; (h) F2,14=26.2, # p<.001; (i) F2,14=17.1,% p<0.001 . For (a–f), similar staining was observed in 6 animals per time-point. Scale bar= 100 µm.