Journal: Nature Communications

Article Title: Aging in mice alters regionally enriched striatal astrocytes

doi: 10.1038/s41467-025-63429-8

Figure Lengend Snippet: a XY directional map of all cell types identified within the striatal section is shown. Medium spiny neurons, cortical neurons, astrocytes, oligodendrocytes, endothelial cells, and microglia are displayed in different colors - each dot represents a cell segmented by MERLIN. All cells within the XY coordinates of the striatum were subset, and here we display the UMAP of these subset striatal cell clusters split by major cell types and UMAP split by age (young = blue; aged = red). b Striatal astrocytes were subset from all striatal cells and clustered separately using the Louvian algorithm. The first UMAP shows striatal astrocyte subtypes from single cells, the second UMAP shows striatal astrocyte subtypes from MERFISH, and the third UMAP shows striatal astrocyte subtypes from integrated single-cell and MERFISH datasets. c – f Top 4 astrocyte subtypes (by abundance) are shown. The astrocyte subtype expression probability is quantified along the dorsal-ventral axis in 500 μm segments in young and aged mice. We divided the striatum into five 500 μm sections, starting at the base of the corpus callosum and moving ventrally. We quantified the density of each astrocyte subtype within each subregion. This astrocyte expression probability quantification was calculated by the number of astrocytes within a subcluster (A1–7), within each 500 μm subregion (0–5) ( X A1…A7 within Y 0…5 ) divided by the total number of astrocytes within that 500 μm section (Σ total ) normalized to the total number of astrocytes within each respective subcluster ( σ A1…A7 ) ([( X A1,..A7 within Y 0…5 /Σ total )/ σ A1…A7 ]). The regional change is quantified by subtracting the young astrocyte expression probability from the aged expression probability. These quantifications were statistically analyzed using a two-way repeated measures (for subregion) ANOVA. Asterisks (*) indicate significant differences ( p value < 0.05) across sub-regions, and hashtags (#) indicate significant differences across ages. Individual representative astrocyte maps for young and aged striatal sections are displayed to the right of the astrocyte density quantification, with astrocyte subtypes demarcated in their respective colors. In the graphs shown in ( c – f ), the corpus callosum is abbreviated as CC on the y -axis.

Article Snippet: MERFISH imaging was performed on an automated Vizgen Alpha Instrument using imaging buffers, hybridization buffers, and parameter files provided by Vizgen.

Techniques: Expressing

Journal: Nature Communications

Article Title: Aging in mice alters regionally enriched striatal astrocytes

doi: 10.1038/s41467-025-63429-8

Figure Lengend Snippet: a Top aging astrocyte markers were assessed using MAST differential expression, and the top 25 up and 25 downregulated transcripts are shown in the heatmap (see also Supplementary Data ). Dorsal enriched genes are marked with an asterisk (*) and ventral enriched genes are marked with a hashtag (#). b Representative image of MERFISH RNA counts shows age increases in Gfap in the dorsal striatum. c Representative images of the dorsal striatum are shown for young and aged mice. GFAP coverage per 500 μm 2 in the dorsal striatum; across young and aged mice ( n = 4–5 mice; 2-way RM ANOVA with Bonferroni post hoc (* p = 0.00032 (aged dorsal compared ventral) and * p = 0.00029 (aged dorsal compared to young dorsal), data are presented as mean values ± SEM). d Representative image of MERFISH RNA counts shows S100b expression in the dorsal striatum. e Quantification of S100β + cells per 500 μm 2 , in the dorsal, medial, and ventral striatum; across young and aged mice ( n = 4–5 mice; 2-way RM ANOVA with Bonferroni post hoc * p = 0.036, data are presented as mean values ± SEM). f IPA analysis was performed on age-induced DEGs in striatal astrocytes, and each black bar indicates the number of genes per pathway, circle size indicates the −log( p value) (right-tailed Fisher’s Exact Test), and circle color indicates the activation score number. g Aging gene score is calculated by the average expression levels of the top 20 differentially expressed genes in age on a single-cell level, subtracted by the aggregated expression of control feature sets. Each dot represents an astrocyte, and the color of the dot is the relative change in the aging score. h Heatmaps of the top 10 shared genes between our aging and A1 astrocyte subtype genes (Log2FC > 0.01) with mouse aging (Log2FC > 0.01), human striatal astrocyte aging, human striatal astrocyte Huntington’s Disease, and human Parkinson’s Disease using the DEG (see data availability and Supplementary Data ). Venn diagrams visualize the total overlap across each gene set. i UpSet plot of the overlap of murine aging striatal data and the past studies.

Article Snippet: MERFISH imaging was performed on an automated Vizgen Alpha Instrument using imaging buffers, hybridization buffers, and parameter files provided by Vizgen.

Techniques: Quantitative Proteomics, Expressing, Activation Assay, Control