Figure 2.

Microglia hesitate to degrade fibrillar α-syn and form a cellular network

(A) Heatmap of Z-score transformed gene expression values for DE transcripts between α-syn treated microglia and controls related to the GO term “response to unfolded protein.”

(B) Representative immunostaining of F-actin⁺ microglia before and after α-syn fibrils degradation.

(C) Quantification of the number of cells (left) and the individual uptake index per cell (right) in microglia after α-syn phagocytosis (15 min) and degradation (24 h). n = 4.

(D) Representative chart of fibrillar α-syn phagocytosis and degradation measured by FACS.

(E) Immunoblot analysis and quantification of microglial lysates after fibrillar α-syn phagocytosis (15 min) and degradation (24 h). n = 4.

(F) Representative immunostaining of microglia demonstrating various cellular F-actin⁺ connections containing α-syn.

(G) Representative Electron Microscopy (FIB-SEM) images of membrane-to-membrane contacts of microglia.

(H) Representative time-lapse recording demonstrating the transfer of α-syn aggregates from one microglia to another.

Graphs represent the mean ± SEM and were analyzed by t test (E) or one-way ANOVA followed by Tukey’s multiple comparison post hoc test (C). ^∗∗∗∗p < 0.0001, ^∗∗∗p < 0.001,

Scale bars: 20 μm. See also Figure S2.