Fig. 5
From: The role of microglia in processing and spreading of bioactive tau seeds in Alzheimer’s disease
Human microglia cells from AD and tauopathy cases also release seed-competent tau into their CM. a Three technical replicates of microglia were cultured for conditioned media from each case and tested on a FRET-based biosensor cell line for detection of tau aggregates. A two-way ANOVA revealed a significant main effect of region (p = 0.0002), case (p < 0.0001), and an interaction between the two (p < 0.0001).Two cases with extensive tau pathology by neuropathological diagnoses yielded microglia CM that triggered seeding activity. Cases FTD-tau1 (frontotemporal dementia, tau variant) and AD1 (AD Braak VI) had significantly more seeding in frontal cortex microglia-conditioned media compared to cerebellum microglia-conditioned media (Bonferroni post-test, p < 0.001). b–d Total tau (DAKO A0024) labeled neuropathology slides of the superior frontal gyrus from the cases used to generate microglia. The superior frontal gyrus from the AD2 case (b) contained very little tau pathology characterized by flame-like interneuronal neurofibrillary tangles compared to cases where microglia CM did induce seeding (Fig. 5c–e) and was more similar to causes with minimal tau pathology (Fig. 5f–h)