Microglia, the innate immune cells of the CNS, play a pivotal role in brain injury and disease. Microglia are extremely motile; their highly ramified processes constantly survey the brain parenchyma, and they respond promptly to brain damage with targeted process movement toward the injury site. Microglia play a key role in brain development and function by pruning synapses during development, ...

Recent data have provided evidence that microglia, the brain-resident macrophage-like cells, modulate neuronal activity in both physiological and pathophysiological conditions, and microglia are therefore now recognized as synaptic partners. Among different neuromodulators, purines, which are produced and released by microglia, have emerged as promising candidates to mediate interactions betwee...

Whereas carcinogenesis requires the acquisition of driver mutations in progenitor cells, tumor growth and progression are heavily influenced by the local microenvironment. Previous studies from our laboratory have used Neurofibromatosis-1 (NF1) genetically engineered mice to characterize the role of stromal cells and signals to optic glioma formation and growth. Previously, we have shown that N...

Microglia and macrophages accumulate at the sites of active demyelination and neurodegeneration in the multiple sclerosis brain and are thought to play a central role in the disease process. We used recently described markers to characterize the origin and functional states of microglia/macrophages in acute, relapsing and progressive multiple sclerosis. We found microglia activation in normal w...

In the mouse model of unilateral laser-induced ocular hypertension (OHT) the microglia in both the treated and the normotensive untreated contralateral eye have morphological signs of activation and up-regulation of MHC-II expression in comparison with naïve. In the brain, rod-like microglia align to less-injured neurons in an effort to limit damage. We investigate whether: i) microglial activa...

Microglia have been shown to contribute to the clearance of brain amyloid β peptides (Aβ), the major component of amyloid plaques, in Alzheimer's disease (AD). However, it is not known whether microglia play a similar role in the clearance of tau, the major component of neurofibrillary tangles (NFTs). We now report that murine microglia rapidly internalize and degrade hyperphosphorylated pathol...

Phospholipase D4 (PLD4) is expressed in activated microglia that transiently appear in white matter during postnatal brain development. Previous knockdown experiments using cultured microglia showed PLD4 involvement in phagocytosis and proliferation. To elucidate the role of PLD4 in vivo, PLD4-deficient mice were generated and the cerebella were examined at postnatal day 5 (P5) and P7, when PLD...

Microglia have been identified in the white matter of developing and adult mouse brain using different murine macrophage markers. While several techniques for the isolation of murine microglia have been described, the small cell yields and partial purification have limited the progress of these studies. We now describe the isolation of murine microglia using a modification of McCarthy and de Ve...

Microglia, the resident immune effective cells of the central nervous system, play crucial roles in mediating immune-related process. It becomes activated quickly in response to even minor pathological insults and participates in series of immune responses. Under physiological conditions, most microglia stay in a typical resting state, with ramified processes continuously extending and retracti...

ASTROCYTES MODULATE MICROGLIAL PHENOTYPE AND DENDRITIC CELL-LIKE PROPERTIES by Nischal K. Padala Microglia are the resident immune cells of the CNS. In the healthy CNS, they express negligible levels of MHC II molecules as well as co-stimulatory molecules CD40, CD80 and CD86 necessary for antigen presentation to and activation of T cells. Co-stimulatory molecule expression can be induced in iso...