The authors thank C. H. Cho for numerous contributions to the experiments; the laboratory of C. Howe and specifically M. Standiford for help with the microglia and astrocyte cultures; M. Poeschla for assistance with the phospho-tau immunohistochemistry; G. Nelson for genotyping and animal support; B. Childs for input and assistance in Gal-TEM; the Mayo Clinic Microscopy and Cell Analysis Core and staff for assistance with flow cytometry and transmission electron microscopy; the Mayo Clinic Medical Genome Facility Gene Expression Core for RT–qPCR instrumentation; and R. Petersen and C. Howe for feedback on the manuscript. This work was supported by the Ellison Medical Foundation, the Glenn Foundation for Medical Research, the National Institutes of Health (R01AG053229), the Mayo Clinic Children’s Research Center and the Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center of Mayo Clinic (all to D.J.B.).

Reviewer information

Nature thanks M. Serrano and the other anonymous reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.