Articles by Han-peng Xu in JoVE

Study Glial Cell Heterogeneity Influence on Axon Growth Using a New Coculture Method

JoVE 2111 9/06/2010

Han-peng Xu^1,2, Lin Gou^3,4, Hong-Wei Dong³

¹Department of Neurosurgery, Cedars Sinai Medical Center, UCLA, ²Basic Medicine School, Fourth Military Medical University, ³Department of Neurology, David Geffen School of Medicine, UCLA, ⁴Aerospace Medicine School, Fourth Military Medical Univeristy

In this protocol, we described a new method to study the influence of glial cell heterogeneity on axon growth with an in vitro co-culture system. Rat cortical glial cells were cultured to confluence and cocultured with highly purified rat dorsal root ganglia neurons. Different glial cell influence on neurons adhesion and axon growth was compared directly in the same culture. This method provides a new way to directly study the glial cell heterogeneity influence on neuron adhesion and axon growth.