Fig. 6: Astrocytes exhibit a noncanonical and sophisticated reactive phenotype when engulfing microglial debris in vivo. | Nature Communications

Fig. 6: Astrocytes exhibit a noncanonical and sophisticated reactive phenotype when engulfing microglial debris in vivo.

From: Microglial debris is cleared by astrocytes via C4b-facilitated phagocytosis and degraded via RUBICON-dependent noncanonical autophagy in mice

Fig. 6

a Scheme of in vivo microglial depletion and time points for immunostaining, ELISA and qPCR analysis. GFAP is upregulated in astrocytes after microglial depletion in vivo, as shown by immunostaining (b), ELISA (c) and qPCR (c). N = 5 (immunostaining and qPCR) and 3 mice (ELISA) in each group. Two-tailed independent t test (immunostaining and qPCR) and one-way ANOVA with Holm‒Sidak’s multiple comparisons test (post hoc) (ELISA). d Scheme of in vivo microglial depletion and time points for RNA-seq analysis. e PCA of astrocytes. f Heatmap of differentially expressed genes in PLX5622-treated microglia. g Heatmap of reactive astrocyte markers in the reactive astrocyte consensus statement47. h Volcano plot of reactive astrocyte markers in the reactive astrocyte consensus statement47. Red dots: upregulated differentially expressed genes; blue dots: downregulated differentially expressed genes; genes in red: positively correlated reactive astrocyte markers; genes in blue: negatively correlated reactive astrocyte markers. Quasi-likelihood (QL) F tests were used for statistical testing. Genes with P < 0.05 and |log2(fold change)| > log2(1.5) were determined to be statistically significant. N = 5 mice in each group (d–h). PLX5622 PLX5622-formulated AIN-76A diet, CD control AIN-76A diet. Data are presented as mean ± SD. The source data are provided as a Source Data file.

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