Fig. 4
From: Evidence for an early innate immune response in the motor cortex of ALS
MCP1+ and CCR2+ cells are present during disease progress in MCP1-CCR2-hSOD1G93A mice spinal cord. a Schematic drawing of lumbar spinal cord showing the area of the ventral horn used to obtain representative images. b–d Representative images of MCP1+ cells (arrow) in the ventral horn of the MCP1-CCR2-WT mice at P60 reveal that MCP1+ cells neither co-localize with SMN (ChAT+ neurons) nor they are in direct contact with SMN. e–h Representative images of MCP1+ cells (arrow) reveal sporadic presence of MCP1+ cells in MCP1-CCR2-WT at P60 that co-localize with Iba1+ microglia but not with GFAP+ astrocytes. i–l Representative images of the MCP1+ cells in the ventral horn of the MCP1-CCR2-hSOD1G93A mice reveal their increase during disease progression. Insets are enlarged at the bottom (i’–l’). MCP1+ cells are in close proximity to SMN during pre-symptomatic stage (arrows) and closely interact with diseased SMN, especially at the end stage of the disease (arrowheads). m–p Representative images of the ventral horn of the MCP1-CCR2-hSOD1G93A mice reveal the progressive microgliosis (Iba1+) and astrogliosis (GFAP+) and MCP1+ cells co-localized with microglia marker but not with astrocyte marker. Insets are enlarged to the right. q–u Representative images of the MCP1+ and CCR2+ cells in the ventral horn of the end-stage MCP1-CCR2-hSOD1G93A mice show numerous MCP1+ cells (asterisk) that co-localize with monocyte/macrophage lineage marker (CD11b+). CCR2+ cells (empty arrowheads) co-localize with CD11b and MCP1+-CCR2+ cell-cell interactions are observed (r–u). Dashed line delineates the grey matter in the ventral horn. Scale bar = 20 μm