The Lifespan and Turnover of Microglia in the Human Brain

Pedro Réu (1, 2) , Azadeh Khosravi (2) , Samuel Bernard (3, 4, 5) , Jeff E. Mold (2) , Mehran Salehpour (6) , Kanar Alkass (2, 7) , Shira Perl (8) , John Tisdale (8) , Göran Possnert (6) , Henrik Druid (7) , Jonas Frisén (2)

1 CNC - Center for Neuroscience and Cell Biology (CNC)
2 Department of Cell and Molecular Biology [Stockholm]
3 DRACULA - Multi-scale modelling of cell dynamics : application to hematopoiesis
4 ICJ - Institut Camille Jordan
5 MMCS - Modélisation mathématique, calcul scientifique
6 Department of Physics and Astronomy [Uppsala]
7 Department of Forensic Medicine [Stockholm]
8 NHLBI - National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute [Bethesda]

The hematopoietic system seeds the CNS with microglial progenitor cells during the fetal period, but the subsequent cell generation dynamics and maintenance of this population have been poorly understood. We report that microglia, unlike most other hematopoietic lineages, renew slowly at a median rate of 28% per year, and some microglia last for more than two decades. Furthermore, we find no evidence for the existence of a substantial population of quiescent long-lived cells, meaning that the microglia population in the human brain is sustained by continuous slow turnover throughout adult life.

Mots clés: microglia; human; turnover; proliferation; renewal

Domaines: Systèmes dynamiques [math.DS]

Pedro Réu, Azadeh Khosravi, Samuel Bernard, Jeff E. Mold, Mehran Salehpour, et al.. The Lifespan and Turnover of Microglia in the Human Brain. Cell Reports, 2017, 20 (4), pp.779 - 784. ⟨10.1016/j.celrep.2017.07.004⟩. ⟨hal-01572438⟩