Fig. 4: Lack of IFNAR expression shifts cellular tropism from neurons to microglia in the cortex of mice.

a–c Maximum-intensity projection of confocal z-stack. The images were taken from sagittal brain sections (10 µm) using confocal microscope (n = 3 per genotype). Scale bars = 20 µm. a Captured at the granule cell layer of olfactory bulb. The sections were immunolabeled using anti-NS5 (green), anti-DCX (red) for immature neurons in the rostral migratory stream and DAPI for nucleus (blue). b Captured within entorhinal cortex and piriform area. The sections were immunolabeled with anti-NS5 (green), anti-GFAP (red) for astrocyte and DAPI for nucleus (blue). c Captured within entorhinal cortex and piriform area. The sections were immunolabeled using anti-NS5 (green), anti-Iba1 (red) for microglia, and DAPI for nucleus (blue). d Low magnification images show representative fields of the sagittal slices of cerebral cortex stained with NS5 and Iba1 in WT and Ifnar^–/– brains. Scale bars = 100 µm. e Percent of Iba1-positive infected cells of total number of infected cells in cortical slices. Statistical analysis (two-tailed unpaired t-test) showed a significant difference (****p < 0.0001) between the percentage infected Iba1-positive cells in Ifnar^–/– mice as compared to WT (n = 2–3 per genotype and 6–8 slices per brain). Source data are provided as a Source Data file.