Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, University Hospital Freiburg Freiburg, Germany.
Front Cell Neurosci. 2013 May 16;7:71. doi: 10.3389/fncel.2013.00071. eCollection 2013.
One long standing aspect of microglia biology was never questioned; their involvement in brain disease. Based on morphological changes (retracted processes and amoeboid shape) that inevitably occur in these cells in case of damage in the central nervous system, microglia in the diseased brain were called "activated." Because "activated" microglia were always found in direct neighborhood to dead or dying neuron, and since it is known now for more than 20 years that cultured microglia release numerous factors that are able to kill neurons, microglia "activation" was often seen as a neurotoxic process. From an evolutionary point of view, however, it is difficult to understand why an important, mostly post-mitotic and highly vulnerable organ like the brain would host numerous potential killers. This review is aimed to critically reconsider the term microglia neurotoxicity and to discuss experimental problems around microglia biology, that often have led to the conclusion that microglia are neurotoxic cells.
长期以来，人们对小胶质细胞生物学的一个方面从未提出质疑，即它们参与脑部疾病。基于中枢神经系统损伤时这些细胞不可避免发生的形态变化（回缩的突起和变形虫样形状），病变大脑中的小胶质细胞被称为“激活”。由于“激活”的小胶质细胞总是出现在死亡或濒死神经元的直接邻近部位，而且由于 20 多年来已经知道培养的小胶质细胞释放出许多能够杀死神经元的因子，因此小胶质细胞“激活”通常被视为一种神经毒性过程。然而，从进化的角度来看，很难理解为什么像大脑这样一个重要的、主要处于有丝分裂后期且高度脆弱的器官会容纳众多潜在的杀手。这篇综述旨在批判性地重新考虑小胶质细胞神经毒性这一术语，并讨论围绕小胶质细胞生物学的实验问题，这些问题常常导致小胶质细胞是神经毒性细胞的结论。
