Microglia form barriers that attenuate the propagation of amyloid pathology in Alzheimer’s disease. d’Errico et al. have uncovered a paradoxical ability of microglia to spread amyloid plaques, which depends on the transcription factor IRF8. Here, we highlight the contexts in which this may happen and discuss outstanding questions.
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M.C. is a member of the scientific advisory board of Vigil, and receives research support from Pfizer and Ono. The authors declare no competing interests. Y.C. declares no competing interests.
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Chen, Y., Colonna, M. Two-faced behavior of microglia in Alzheimer’s disease. Nat Neurosci 25, 3–4 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41593-021-00963-w
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41593-021-00963-w
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