Microglial transformation following the uptake of age-associated micronuclei

In aged mice, neuronal nuclei exhibit increased fragility of the nuclear envelope, and micronucleus-like structures are observed. In addition, by labeling the neuronal nuclear envelope with SUN1-GFP, we have found that micronuclei are generated from neurons of aged mice and are subsequently transferred to microglia. In this study, we isolated microglia that had taken up micronuclei derived from aged neurons and characterized their gene expression profiles using bulk RNA-seq analysis.