Volume 17 Issue 7, July 2012

Gliosis associated to amyloid plaques is markedly reduced in double mutant APP/PS1 mice expressing the phosphatase calcineurin in astrocytes in a doxycycline (dox)-regulated fashion (AICAP mice). Upper panels show reactive astrogliosis revealed with the astrocytic marker GFAP (green) while lower panels show reactive microglia detected with the specific marker Iba1 (green). Amyloid plaques were visualized with Aβ immunocytochemistry (red). The number of GFAP⁺ and Iba1⁺ cells was reduced in proportion to the reduction in Aβ plaques seen in AICAP mice (middle panels) as compared to APP/PS1 (left panels) or AICAP+dox (right panels) mice. For more info on this topic, please refer to the article by Fernandez et al. on pages 705–718.