Fig. 5

Strong microglia activation and increased microglial inflammasome activation evident in SYN120 tg mice as compared to WT mice is counteracted by DRD1 agonism. a Representative confocal images showing Iba-1 (green) and NLRP3 (red) immunopositivity in striatum of 12-month-old WT mice, SYN120 tg mice, SYN120 tg mice treated for 1 month with saline vehicle (SYN120 tg vehicle), and SYN120 tg mice treated for 1 month with 10 mg/kg/day SKF38393 (SYN120 tg SKF38393). Scale bar 50 µm. b Z-stack reconstruction of ~ 10 µm showing that NLRP3 signal is present in Iba-1-positive cells (colocalization in yellow). c Z-stack reconstruction of ~ 10 µm showing decreased NLRP3 signal in Iba-1-positive cells in striatum of 12-month-old SYN120 mice after 1 month of SKF38393 treatment. d Representative images showing NLRP3 (red) and ASC (green) immunopositivity in striatum of 12-month-old WT mice, SYN120 tg mice, SYN120 tg vehicle mice, and SYN120 tg SKF38393 mice. The overlap in NLRP3 and ASC immunopositivity (yellow) is suggestive of inflammasome activation. Scale bar 50 µm. e–g Graphs represent the quantification of the indicated protein [Iba-1 (e), NLRP3 (f), or ASC (g)] in striatum slices of 12-month-old WT, SYN120 tg, SYN120 tg vehicle, and SYN120 tg SKF38393 mice based on immunopositive area in field to confirm observations from confocal images in a–d. *p < 0.05 by one-way ANOVA, n = 3 animals for each group