Impacts of autofluorescence on fluorescence based techniques to study microglia

BACKGROUND: Microglia, the resident immune cells in the central nervous system, accrue autofluorescent granules inside their cytoplasm throughout their lifespan. In this report, we studied the impacts of autofluorescence on widely used fluorescence-based techniques to study microglia, including flow cytometry, immunofluorescence staining, and live imaging. RESULTS: The failed attempt of using fluorescein isothiocyanate (FITC) conjugated antibody to detect lymphocyte-activation gene 3 protein in microglia prompted us to compare the sensitivity of FITC, phycoerythrin (PE) and allophycocyanin (APC) conjugated antibodies to detect surface protein expression in microglia. We found that PE outperformed FITC and APC as the fluorophore conjugated to antibody for flow cytometry by overcoming the interference from microglia autofluorescence. To identify the location and source of microglia autofluorescence, we did confocal imaging and spectral analysis of microglia autofluorescence on fixed brain tissues, revealing that microglia autofluorescence emitted from cytoplasmic granules and displayed a multi-peak emission spectrum. We recommended removing autofluorescence by lipofuscin removing agents when staining intracellular proteins in microglia with the immunofluorescence techniques. On live brain slices, autofluorescent granules reduced the amplitudes of calcium signals in microglial somata derived from GCaMP6s fluorescence and thus needed to be excluded when selecting regions of interest (ROI). CONCLUSIONS: In conclusion, autofluorescence is a critical factor to consider when designing experiments and interpreting results based on fluorescence-based techniques to study microglia. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12868-022-00703-1.