Astrocytic Sox9 overexpression in Alzheimer's disease mouse models promotes Aβ plaque phagocytosis and preserves cognitive function.

Abstract

Astrocytes play essential roles in the brain, and their dysfunction is associated with nearly every form of neurological disease. Despite their ubiquity, knowledge of how astrocytes contribute to disease pathogenesis is incomplete; accordingly, harnessing their biology toward therapeutics remains a major challenge. Here we show that the transcription factor Sox9 plays a context-specific role in maintaining astrocyte function and circuit activity in the aging hippocampus and Alzheimer's disease (AD) models. We found that Sox9 overexpression in astrocytes in AD models clears existing amyloid beta (Aβ) plaques and preserves cognitive function. Mechanistically, Sox9 promotes the phagocytosis of Aβ plaques by astrocytes through the regulation of the phagocytic receptor MEGF10, which is sufficient to preserve cognitive function in AD models. Collectively, these studies highlight a role for astrocytic Sox9 during aging and AD while identifying Sox9-MEGF10 signaling as a prospective astrocyte-based therapeutic approach to ameliorate cognitive decline in neurodegenerative disease.