Table 2.
In vivo and ex vivo engulfment assays.
| Models | Brain areas | Engulfed substrates | Techniques adopted | References |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cx3xr1-/- mouse | Hippocampus | SNAP25+, PSD95+ synaptic materials | Confocal microscopy; immune-gold electron microscopy | (18) |
| Itgam-/-; C3-/- mouse | Visual System | RGC inputs | Confocal microscopy dimensional (3D) surface volume rendering | (15) |
| Trem2-/- mouse | Hippocampus | PSD95+ synaptic materials | Fluorescent microscopy | (20) |
| Zebrafish | Spinal cord | Apoptotic neuron | Fluorescent microscopy, 3D rendering | (157) |
| Mertk-/- Mouse | Cortex | Apoptotic neuron | Time-lapse two-photon imaging | (158) |
| Adult microglia ex vivo | Cortex | Alexa-488 labeled apoptotic (dNs) or live neurons | Flow cytometry | (70) |
| Amyloid beta (through the fluorescent marker Methoxy-XO4) | (159) | |||
| Synaptic markers VGLUT1 and synaptophysin | (160) |
The table reports some of the experimental approaches used to study microglia engulfment in vivo and ex vivo in different animal models.