Analysis of the Microglial Sensome

Abstract

Sensing changes in the brain milieu is a major microglial function that regulates the ability of these cells to perform other tasks including host defense and homeostasis. Microglia express a cluster of genes that allow them to perform their sensing functions termed the sensome. It is important to be able to assess expression of these genes and their corresponding proteins in isolated microglia. Here we describe a step by step procedure to isolate microglia from adult mouse brains and provide examples of analyzing sensome genes and proteins by quantitative PCR and flow cytometry ex vivo. We also describe an in situ hybridization method to detect sensome RNA in the mouse brain. These approaches can be applied to all known sensome genes and can be used in analyzing sensome expression in physiological and pathological conditions.