A tool for mapping microglial morphology, morphOMICs, reveals brain-region and sex-dependent phenotypes.

ABSTRACT: Environmental cues influence the highly dynamic morphology of microglia. Strategies to characterize these changes usually involve user-selected morphometric features, which preclude the identification of a spectrum of context-dependent morphological phenotypes. Here we develop MorphOMICs, a topological data analysis approach, which enables semiautomatic mapping of microglial morphology into an atlas of cue-dependent phenotypes and overcomes feature-selection biases and biological variability. We extract spatially heterogeneous and sexually dimorphic morphological phenotypes for seven adult mouse brain regions. This sex-specific phenotype declines with maturation but increases over the disease trajectories in two neurodegeneration mouse models, with females showing a faster morphological sh

SUBMITTER: Colombo G 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9534764 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature