Fig. 7

Homeostatic microglia markers are significantly altered in pre-clinical prion diseased TKO-mice at day 80 p.i. a Representative immunostaining of GFAP, Iba1, P2ry12, or TMEM119 in thalamus in brain sections of TKO- and WT-mice and age matched control; scale bar: 50 μm; high magnification: 25 μm. b Quantification of positive staining area (μm² × 1000) of GFAP, Iba1, P2ry12, and TMEM119 of brain sections at 80 days post infection. While GFAP and Iba1 staining intensities are unchanged between prion infected TKO and WT-mice, both are significantly upregulated compared to uninfected control (GFAP p = 0.0058; Iba1 p = 0.0030). In contrast, P2ry12⁺ and TMEM119⁺-microglia are significantly dysregulated in prion infected TKO-mice only (P2ry12 p = 0.0069; TMEM119 p = 0.0089) n = 3–4 individual mice/group