Transcriptomics and Live Imaging to Define Functional Phenotypes of Microglia in Pathological Human Tissue.

Human microglia, as those of rodents, may possess multiple functional phenotypes. Here we present protocols to determine elements of these microglial phenotypes obtained after therapeutic excision of brain tissue from patients with epilepsies of the temporal lobe and cortical gliomas. This technique permits to identify microglia, to determine their shape and expression of state-specific markers, to measure resting and induced motilities, to define a human microglial transcriptome, and to determine how it changes after a seizure.