Neuronal Nuclei Isolation from Human Postmortem Brain Tissue
Psychiatry, Brudnick Neuropsychiatric Research Institute, University of Massachusetts Medical School
The cellular heterogeneity of brain tissue poses a significant limitation for the study of epigenetic markings in chromatin because most assays lack single cell resolution. Neurons typically are intermingled with glia and other non-neuronal cells. We provide a protocol to extract and collect neuronal nuclei from human brain.
Batch Immunostaining for Large-Scale Protein Detection in the Whole Monkey Brain
1Cognitive Neuroscience Unit, Montreal Neurological Institute, 2Ècole d’Optomètrie, Universitè de Montrèal, 3Department of Psychology, McGill University
Large-scale immunodetection of target proteins across the entire primate brain is possible by employing novel tissue embedding and sectioning methods combined with the use of creative apparatus for batch staining of multiple free-floating sections at a given time.
Stereotaxic Injection of a Viral Vector for Conditional Gene Manipulation in the Mouse Spinal Cord
1Département Nociception et Douleur, Institut des Neurosciences Cellulaires et Intégratives, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), 2Departments of Anesthesiology and Pharmacology, Columbia University, 3Department of Anesthesiology, Niigata University Graduate School of Medical and Dental Sciences
Viral vectors allow for targeted gene manipulation. We demonstrate a method for conditional gene expression or ablation in the mouse spinal cord, using stereotaxic injection of a viral vector into the dorsal horn, a prominent site of synaptic contact between primary somatosensory afferents and neurons of the central nervous system.
Production of Lentiviral Vectors for Transducing Cells from the Central Nervous System
In this protocol we describe production, purification and titration of lentiviral vectors. We provide an example of lentiviral vector-mediated gene delivery in primary cultured neurons and astrocytes. Our methods may also apply to other cell types in vitro and in vivo.
Brain Banking: Making the Most of your Research Specimens
1Department of Physiology, University of Montreal, 2School of Optometry, University of Montreal
Brain banking and systematic sampling of biological material provides the basis for unbiased stereology and maximizes the potential data obtained from each specimen.
Primary Microglia Isolation from Mixed Glial Cell Cultures of Neonatal Rat Brain Tissue
1Neuroscience Program, Uniformed Services University, 2Department of Anatomy, Physiology, and Genetics, Uniformed Services University, 3Molecular and Cell Biology, Uniformed Services University
Isolating primary microglia from the cellular heterogeneity of the brain is essential to investigate their role in both physiological and pathological conditions. This protocol describes a mechanical isolation and mixed cell culture technique that provides high yield and high purity, viable primary microglial cells for in vitro study and downstream applications.
The Analysis of Purkinje Cell Dendritic Morphology in Organotypic Slice Cultures
Anatomical Institute, Department of Biomedicine, University of Basel
We present a protocol that permits to view and to quantitatively asses the morphology of the dendritic tree of individual Purkinje cells grown in organotypic cerebellar slice cultures. This protocol is intended to promote studies on the mechanisms of Purkinje cell dendritic development.
Isolation, Enrichment, and Maintenance of Medulloblastoma Stem Cells
Department of Cell and Developmental Biology, Vanderbilt University
This protocol describes the isolation, enrichment, and maintenance of medulloblastoma tumor stem cells derived from mutant mice with ectopic Sonic hedgehog pathway activity.
Strategies for Study of Neuroprotection from Cold-preconditioning
Department of Neurology, The University of Chicago Medical Center
We seek to define the neural immune signaling responsible for cold-preconditioning as means to identify novel targets for therapeutics development to protect brain before injury onset. We present strategies for such work that require biological systems, experimental manipulations plus technical capacities that are highly reproducible and sensitive.
Generation, Purification, and Characterization of Cell-invasive DISC1 Protein Species
1Department of Neuropathology, Medical School Düsseldorf, Germany, 2Center of Behavioral Neuroscience, University of Düsseldorf
The generation, purification and cell invasion of intracellular, cytoplasmic full length DISC1 protein aggresomes from cell cultures and of a labeled, multimeric recombinant DISC1 protein fragment in E. coli are described. Cell invasiveness is shown for recipient cells in cell culture and for neurons in vivo after stereotactical brain inoculation.
