Silencing of TGFβ signalling in microglia results in impaired homeostasis
Zöller T, Schneider A, Kleimeyer C, Masuda T, Potru PS, Pfeifer D, Blank T, Prinz M, Spittau B.
TGFβ1 has been implicated in regulating functional aspects of several distinct immune cell populations including central nervous system (CNS) resident microglia. Here, we demonstrate that deletion of Tgfbr2 in adult postnatal microglia does neither result in impairment of the microglia-specific gene expression signatures, nor is microglial survival and maintenance affected. Tgfbr2-deficient microglia were characterised by distinct morphological changes and transcriptome analysis using RNAseq revealed that loss of TGFβ signalling results in upregulation of microglia activation and priming markers. Together, these data underline the importance of microglial TGFβ signalling to regulate microglia adaptive changes.
