Nat Neurosci: scientists have successfully studied the function of human microglia in mouse brain, which is expected to develop a new therapy for Alzheimer's disease

November 12, 2019 / BIOON / -- human brain has been a very complex research object for a long time The resolution of brain scanning and the information it can provide are also very limited, and researchers can not use in vitro methods to completely copy the important microenvironment in brain cells Recently, an international journal Nature Neuroscience was published In the report above, scientists from Flanders Institute of biotechnology developed a new method, which pioneered the transplantation of human brain microglia into mouse brain Photo source: cc0 public domain Microglia is a kind of brain cell that mainly maintains complex brain function, which plays a very important role in the pathogenesis of Alzheimer's disease, but it is difficult for researchers to study microglia at present; microglia cultured in a culture dish often ignores the complex environment needed to maintain cell function, while microglia in the brain of model animals such as mice, etc The cytoplasm is also different from the microglia of the human brain Now researchers are trying to get stem cells in the lab by studying them The derived human microglia was transplanted into the mouse brain for research Professor strooper explained that in this study, we first revealed the response of human microglia to Alzheimer's disease By analyzing the function of human microglia in the mouse brain, the researchers could reveal the molecular mechanism of microglia attacking human amyloid peptide The results of this study may help researchers to elucidate how multiple combinations of human genes that increase the risk of Alzheimer's disease play a role in the human brain The researchers pointed out that the amazing similarity between the human microglia transplanted into the mouse brain and the microglia isolated from the brain of patients undergoing neurosurgery revealed the importance of this research work; later researchers will continue to further study and clarify the function of human microglia transplanted into the mouse brain, so as to develop and treat a variety of nerves The new treatment of degenerative diseases provides new ideas Original sources: Renzo Mancuso, Johanna van den Daele, Nicola fattorelli, et al Stem cell derived human microplanated in mouse brain to study human disease, Nature Neuroscience (2019) Doi: 10.1038/s41593-019-0525-x