Microglia-neuron crosstalk through Hex-GM2-MGL2 maintains brain homeostasis.

As tissue-resident macrophages of the central nervous system parenchyma, microglia perform diverse essential functions during homeostasis and perturbations. They primarily interact with neurons by means of synaptic engulfment and through the rapid elimination of apoptotic cells and non-functional synapses. Here, by combining unbiased lipidomics and high-resolution spatial lipid imaging, deep single-cell transcriptome analysis and novel cell-type-specific mutants, we identified a previously unknown mode of microglial interaction with neurons.

Deep MALDI-MS spatial omics guided by quantum cascade laser mid-infrared imaging microscopy.

In spatial'omics, highly confident molecular identifications are indispensable for the investigation of complex biology and for spatial biomarker discovery. However, current mass spectrometry imaging (MSI)-based spatial 'omics must compromise between data acquisition speed and biochemical profiling depth. Here, we introduce fast, label-free quantum cascade laser mid-infrared imaging microscopy (QCL-MIR imaging) to guide MSI to high-interest tissue regions as small as kidney glomeruli, cultured multicellular spheroid cores or single motor neurons.

Spatially resolved lipidomics shows conditional transfer of lipids produced by Bacteroides thetaiotaomicron into the mouse gut.

The extent to which bacterial lipids produced by the gut microbiota penetrate host tissues is unclear. Here, we combined mass spectrometry approaches to identify lipids produced by the human gut symbiont Bacteroides thetaiotaomicron (B. theta) and spatially track these bacterial lipids in the mouse colon.