Abstract (eng)
Although microglia have been electrophysiologically characterized over the past decade, many questions remain unresolved. This is at least in part due to the fact that microglia in culture seem to exhibit different properties than in acute slices (Farber and Kettenmann, 2005). It is therefore not clear if all channels and receptors described in culture can be found in microglia in acute slices. Apart from the pronounced potassium conductance in glial cells, other ion channels are important for nervous system homeostasis (Kettenmann et al., 2011). As all ion channels, microglial channels are prone to functional regulation by G-proteins and second-messenger pathways. Since the compositions of both the extra- and intracellular solution are predefined in whole-cell patch clamp experiments, specific modifications are possible. In order to test the ef-fect of functional ion channel regulation on microglial membrane currents, a high sodium con-centration, a near-universal G-protein activator and ubiquitous second messenger molecule were individually added to the intracellular solution during a seven minutes recording to ensure full dialysis. Since high intracellular sodium concentration is believed to act on a multitude of intracellular targets, it was used to test if potassium currents could be modified intracellularly. Interestingly, microglia responded with a significantly increased current density (p<0.0001 to p=0.0121) in response to negative voltage steps in response to high intracellular sodium when compared to standard intracellular solution. Additionally, cells treated with high intracellular sodium also exhibited a lower capacitance (p=0.0456) and membrane potential (p=0.075) than control cells. In a next step, intracellular modulation of G-protein coupled receptors was at-tempted with the nearly universal Gα protein activator GTPγS. Additionally, the ubiquitous in-tracellular second messenger molecule cAMP was applied intracellularly. While both GTPγS and cAMP significantly reduced the current density (p<0.05) when compared to the control, only GTPγS exhibited a reduction in outward conductance (p=0.0002) between the one and seven minute recordings. In contrast to cAMP, GTPγS also affected the microglial ATP response. In con-trast to the usually observed outward current (Boucsein et al., 2000) at voltages positve to -60 mV, intracellularly applied GTPγS induced an inward current, which was significantly different from control and cAMP ATP responses (p=0.003 to 0.0007). Furthermore, recent observations suggest that microglia exhibit functional and therefore expressional heterogeneity (Gertig and Hanisch, 2014). It has been speculated that this heterogeneity is based on adaptations to specific signaling molecule milieus. In the second part of this project, microglia were therefore compared between the well-characterized cerebral cortex and two novel areas, namely the cerebellum and thalamus. Surprisingly, inward (p=0.007 and p<0.0001 compared to thalamus and cortex, respectively) and outward (p=0.0297 and p=0.0007) membrane conductance was significantly increased in the cerebellum. Additionally, membrane capacitance of cerebellar microglia was found to be significantly decreased (p=0.0002). While the smaller membrane area of cerebellar microglia has already been noted in immunohistochemical studies (Lawson et al., 1990; Vela et al., 1995), the increased conductance is a novel oberservation. This current project therefore yields new insight into the electrophysiology of murine microglia. Especially the intracellular modification of membrane currents is a relatively new approach in microglia. Furthermore, the characterization of microglial membrane currents in different brain areas demonstrates that heterogeneous microglia populations do exist. The underlying mechanisms of this heterogeneity should be further investigated.