Single-cell transcriptomics reveals distinct inflammation-induced microglia signatures

Sousa, Carole; Golebiewska, Anna; Poovathingal, Suresh K; Kaoma, Tony; Pires-Afonso, Yolanda; Martina, Silvia; Coowar, Djalil; Azuaje, Francisco; Skupin, Alexander; Balling, Rudi; Biber, Knut; Niclou, Simone P; Michelucci, Alessandro

We apologize for the unclear explanation regarding these experiments. Actually, the relevance of showing that the homeostatic gene markers are decreased in cultivated microglia under LPS exposure was to strength our in vivo results. Showing that the decrease of Tmem119, Gpr34, etc. is observed in pure populations of cultivated microglia with no contamination by other immune cells which do not express these markers (e.g. resident macrophages and peripheral immune cells) is a robust evidence that the down-regulation of the homeostatic signature under inflammatory conditions is an intrinsic property of microglia. The text reads as follows: "In order to further assess that the decrease of the homeostatic signature under inflammatory conditions is not due to the presence of other immune cell types, but it is an intrinsic property of microglial cells, we also analysed the effect of LPS on cultivated microglia from neonatal and adult mice". Notably, the decrease of the homeostatic gene markers is among the most prominent effect also at the single-cell resolution.