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Microglial subtypes: diversity within the microglial community

Microglia are brain‐resident macrophages forming the first active immune barrier in the central nervous system. They fulfill multiple functions across development and adulthood and under disease conditions. Current understanding revolves around microglia acquiring distinct phenotypes upon exposure t...

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Autores principales: Stratoulias, Vassilis, Venero, Jose Luis, Tremblay, Marie‐Ève, Joseph, Bertrand
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: John Wiley and Sons Inc. 2019
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6717890/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31373067
http://dx.doi.org/10.15252/embj.2019101997
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author Stratoulias, Vassilis
Venero, Jose Luis
Tremblay, Marie‐Ève
Joseph, Bertrand
author_facet Stratoulias, Vassilis
Venero, Jose Luis
Tremblay, Marie‐Ève
Joseph, Bertrand
author_sort Stratoulias, Vassilis
collection PubMed
description Microglia are brain‐resident macrophages forming the first active immune barrier in the central nervous system. They fulfill multiple functions across development and adulthood and under disease conditions. Current understanding revolves around microglia acquiring distinct phenotypes upon exposure to extrinsic cues in their environment. However, emerging evidence suggests that microglia display differences in their functions that are not exclusively driven by their milieu, rather by the unique properties these cells possess. This microglial intrinsic heterogeneity has been largely overlooked, favoring the prevailing view that microglia are a single‐cell type endowed with spectacular plasticity, allowing them to acquire multiple phenotypes and thereby fulfill their numerous functions in health and disease. Here, we review the evidence that microglia might form a community of cells in which each member (or “subtype”) displays intrinsic properties and performs unique functions. Distinctive features and functional implications of several microglial subtypes are considered, across contexts of health and disease. Finally, we suggest that microglial subtype categorization shall be based on function and we propose ways for studying them. Hence, we advocate that plasticity (reaction states) and diversity (subtypes) should both be considered when studying the multitasking microglia.
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spelling pubmed-67178902019-09-06 Microglial subtypes: diversity within the microglial community Stratoulias, Vassilis Venero, Jose Luis Tremblay, Marie‐Ève Joseph, Bertrand EMBO J Review Microglia are brain‐resident macrophages forming the first active immune barrier in the central nervous system. They fulfill multiple functions across development and adulthood and under disease conditions. Current understanding revolves around microglia acquiring distinct phenotypes upon exposure to extrinsic cues in their environment. However, emerging evidence suggests that microglia display differences in their functions that are not exclusively driven by their milieu, rather by the unique properties these cells possess. This microglial intrinsic heterogeneity has been largely overlooked, favoring the prevailing view that microglia are a single‐cell type endowed with spectacular plasticity, allowing them to acquire multiple phenotypes and thereby fulfill their numerous functions in health and disease. Here, we review the evidence that microglia might form a community of cells in which each member (or “subtype”) displays intrinsic properties and performs unique functions. Distinctive features and functional implications of several microglial subtypes are considered, across contexts of health and disease. Finally, we suggest that microglial subtype categorization shall be based on function and we propose ways for studying them. Hence, we advocate that plasticity (reaction states) and diversity (subtypes) should both be considered when studying the multitasking microglia. John Wiley and Sons Inc. 2019-08-02 2019-09-02 /pmc/articles/PMC6717890/ /pubmed/31373067 http://dx.doi.org/10.15252/embj.2019101997 Text en © 2019 The Authors. Published under the terms of the CC BY 4.0 license This is an open access article under the terms of the http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Review
Stratoulias, Vassilis
Venero, Jose Luis
Tremblay, Marie‐Ève
Joseph, Bertrand
Microglial subtypes: diversity within the microglial community
title Microglial subtypes: diversity within the microglial community
title_full Microglial subtypes: diversity within the microglial community
title_fullStr Microglial subtypes: diversity within the microglial community
title_full_unstemmed Microglial subtypes: diversity within the microglial community
title_short Microglial subtypes: diversity within the microglial community
title_sort microglial subtypes: diversity within the microglial community
topic Review
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6717890/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31373067
http://dx.doi.org/10.15252/embj.2019101997
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