Microglial cells articles from across Nature Portfolio

Microglia could have health-promoting capacities in age-associated neuroinflammation. Here, the authors describe an autophagy and IL-34 dependent neuroprotective microglia population in the aging brain as a potential therapeutic target.

Cryptococcal meningitis is a life-threatening fungal infection. Here, Mohamed et al find that brain resident microglia do not provide protection against this infection and instead are a site where the fungus may access the micronutrient copper.

The authors seek to understand the precise roles of microglia in the early human brain by coculturing brain organoids with primitive-like macrophages generated from the same human induced pluripotent stem cells (iMac).

Microglia drastically change their morphology when reacting to pathological stimuli. Here, the authors study the molecular responses to stimulation and unravel cytoskeleton remodeling pathways that induce morphological and functional changes.

Microglia are increasingly implicated in the maintenance and regeneration of myelin, which is damaged with normal ageing and in several neurodegenerative diseases. This article reviews the mechanisms by which microglia support and restore myelin health and the factors that influence these crucial microglial functions.

Vasek et al. show that microglia perform protein translation in their processes and that this translation is important for the number of processes and formation of phagocytic cups. These findings may provide insight into how microglia respond rapidly to a wide variety of local signals in defined cellular compartments.

A new study by Zhou et al. identifies a unique microglia state in Nasu-Hakola disease and new potential therapeutic targets.

A recent study used a zebrafish model to show that the microbiota promotes social behaviour by stimulating microglial pruning of brain circuits during early neurodevelopment.