Fig. 2

Infectious environment does not accelerate neurodegeneration in microglia-poor regions of the hippocampus. Wt and 5xFAD mice were housed in a naturally bred environment. Mice were sacrificed at age 7 months for pathological assessment. A–F Representative images of coronal brain sections at Bregma -2 ± 0.1 mm stained for DAPI, Iba1, and amyloid-beta. hippocampus (A, B total hippocampus; C, D CA1; E, F CA3). There was no significant difference in hippocampal neuronal density between 5xFAD and wt mice (H). The density of CA1 and CA3 Iba1 + microglia was significantly lower than cortical microglia (Fig. 1J), and there was no difference between 5xFAD and wt mice (G). Error bars-SEM. P values by one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) followed by Tukey’s post-hoc test, n = 6/group