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Microglia, as the resident myeloid cells of the central nervous system, play an important role in life-long brain maintenance and in pathology. Microglia are derived from erythromyeloid progenitors that migrate to the brain starting at embryonic day 8.5 and continuing until the blood-brain barrier is formed; after this, self-renewal is the only source of new microglia in the healthy brain. As the brain develops, microglia must perform different functions to accommodate temporally changing needs: first, actively engaging in synapse pruning and neurogenesis, and later, maintaining homeostasis. Although the interactions of microglia with the brain environment at steady state and in response to immune challenges have been well studied, their dynamics during development have not been fully elucidated.

We systematically studied the transcriptional and epigenomic regulation of microglia …