Jiangsu Provincial Center for Disease Control and Prevention 2 articles published in JoVE Developmental Biology Using Alizarin Red Staining to Detect Chemically Induced Bone Loss in Zebrafish Larvae Jie Ding*1, Rui Yan*1, Luna Wang1, Qianlei Yang1, Xiaoyun Zhang1, Nan Jing1, Yuanjie Wei1, Hengdong Zhang2,3, Yan An1 1Department of Toxicology, School of Public Health, Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Preventive and Translational Medicine for Geriatric Diseases, Medical College of Soochow University, 2Department of Occupational Disease Prevention, Jiangsu Provincial Center for Disease Control and Prevention, 3Jiangsu Preventive Medicine Association, Nanjing, China Here, we have used alizarin red staining to show that lead acetate exposure causes a bone mass change in zebrafish larvae. This staining method can be adapted to the investigation of bone loss in zebrafish larvae loss induced by other hazardous toxicants. Neuroscience A Simplified Method for Ultra-Low Density, Long-Term Primary Hippocampal Neuron Culture Zhongming Lu*1,2, Mariel Piechowicz*1, Shenfeng Qiu1 1Department of Basic Medical Sciences, University of Arizona College of Medicine-Phoenix, 2Jiangsu Provincial Center for Disease Control and Prevention Low density cultures of primary hippocampal neurons usually require glia feeder layer to supply neurotrophic factors and sustain longevity. We describe here a simplified method to culture ultra-low density neurons on glass coverslips in the presence of a high density neuronal feeder layer, which facilitates investigation of specific neuronal-autonomous mechanisms.