Fig 2: Reactive microglial cells expressing Gal-3 presented Aß inclusions in human tissue samples. a–f Gal-3-positive microglial cell associated with Aß plaques. g 3D reconstruction of microglial cells with multiple Aß inclusions inside. Gal3 (green), Aß (red), Iba1 (white), DAPI (blue). White arrows are pointing to Aß inclusions (in red) (n = 3 (HC), n = 8 (AD)

Fig 3: Reactive microglial cells expressing Gal-3 interact with p-Tau in senile plaques from human tissue samples. a–f Gal-3-positive microglial cell associated with p-Tau plaques. g 3D reconstruction of microglial cell with multiple p-Tau interactions. Gal3 (green), p-Tau (red), Iba1 (white) and DAPI (blue). White arrows are pointing p-Tau Gal-3 interactions (in orange). n = 3 (HC), n = 8 (AD)

Fig 4: Sensitivity of galectin gene expression to disruptions in O-GlcNAc homeostasis: (a) Changes in the expression of six galectin genes (LGALS1, LGALS3, LGALS8, LGALS9, LGALS10, and LGALS12) in HL-60 cells grown in IMDM medium supplemented with either FBS or ITS and treated with O-GlcNAc-modulating drugs as specified in Figure 1. Significant differences (p < 0.05) between treatments are labeled by different letters as per one-way ANOVA followed by a Tukey’s multiple comparisons test for each media. The results are presented as means ± SD, n = 3–5; (b) Pairwise correlation analysis of gene expression in HL-60 cells: left, heatmap showing pairwise correlation patterns between expression of genes (log2-transformed values) encoding galectins and cell differentiation marker NCF1. Significant (p < 0.05) Pearson’s correlation coefficients are reported for each pairwise comparison while blanks cells indicate that the correlation is not significant; right, comparison of pairwise Pearson’s correlations between IMDM-FBS and IMDM-ITS samples using the ‘cocor’ R package, significant p values are shown, ns—not significant, n = 15 for each gene (3 biological replicates for each treatment including control).