Fig. 7

Microglia depletion by CSF1R inhibition reduces Aβ plaque abundance in the DCN and alters cytokine expression. A, B Multiplex array of cytokine protein expression in the EC and DCN. EC and DCN sections from App KI mice were fed chow containing PLX5622 or an inert dye (Control) for 60 days beginning at age 4 months. A Bar chart of log₂ mean differences in cytokine expression between PLX5622 and control conditions for WT and App^NL−G−F mice in the EC and DCN. Error bars indicate 95% confidence intervals and stats were calculated using three-way ANOVAs followed by Tukey’s HSD post hoc tests. Significant differences are indicated for main effect of treatment (¤), effect of treatment in each region (†) and effect of treatment in each region for each genotype (*). * p < 0.05, ** p < 0.01, *** p < 0.001, **** p < 0.0001. B Heatmap showing expression z-scores for each protein across all conditions. C Immunohistochemistry on brain sections was performed for soluble Aβ (α-6E10: cyan), microglia (α-IBA1: magenta), as well as fibrillar Aβ (FSB: yellow). Images were taken at 20X magnification. Scale bar 200 µm. D, E Examples of individual plaques from subfigure (C) in the EC (D) and DCN (E). Scale bar at 10 m. F Quantification of IBA1⁺ microglia coverage in the EC and DCN of App KI mice fed with PLX5622 and control chow, showing significant depletion in both regions (N = 9 subjects, n = 3 sections/subject). G, H Quantification of number, total area and average size of FSB⁺ plaques in EC (G) and DCN (H), for two different plaque size thresholds (> 10 µm² and > 100 µm²; N = 9 subjects, n = 3 sections/subject)