Immunostaining of Brain Sections

After cryosection, 2 μm thick brain sections were mounted onto glass slides. Sections were washed with PBS (pH 7.4), followed by antigen retrieval using sodium citrate buffer, pH 6, at 95°C for 25 min in a water bath. Nonspecific staining in sections was blocked using 10% donkey serum in 0.1% Tween 20-PBS for 1 h at room temperature. Primary antibodies were added overnight at a dilution of 1 : 350 for goat Iba-1 (Abcam), 1 : 1,000 for rabbit MMP-2 (Abcam) at 4°C. Alexa 488-conjugated donkey anti-goat IgG (1 : 200, Jackson Lab, Suffolk, United Kingdom) or Cy3-conjugated donkey anti-rabbit IgG (1 : 200, Jackson Lab) was subsequently applied. The nuclei were counterstained with DAPI (Sigma-Aldrich). Images were taken using a microscope (Axio Imager Z1, Carl Zeiss, China). This part was similar with the methods of Hu et al. [32 (link)].