Primary Neurons and Cell Based Assays

The feedback I receive from Neuroscientists is consistent. To paraphrase, "gives us healthy, consistent and potent primary cells. I understand the hard work it takes to generate meaningful and publishable results from cell based assays. Our Primary Neurons and Astrocytes are merely inputs for these assays. The real cost is the time invested in culturing and time lost if they don't work.

I have numerous postings on success: Primary Neurons Postings. I wanted to share more data and feedback.

Primary DRGs-Culturing these can be tricky. I make it a point to work with labs to make sure the protocol options best match the desired outcome for assays. This includes replacing cells to make sure we can accurately troubleshoot. This approach insures I can pin point the issues and make sure they are all resolved in round two. Here's a representative testimonial: "Thanks for following up, the DRGs worked great and we were able to get excellent data from them. Thanks so much for working with us." Adam Ross, Dr. Chengji Zhou Lab, UC Davis

Image: DRGs cultured on Calf Skin Collagen.

Primary Hippocampal Neurons-I would like to thank Vimal Swarup, University of Utah for this excellent image.

The cells have been fixed after 48 hrs, they were grown over poly-lysine coated coverslips in the media supplied by Neuromics. Cells were imaged in phase contrast mode with 40x objective.

Put our primary cells to the test!

Amyloid Beta and E18 Primary Hippocampal Neurons

We would like to feature an interesting application of our E18 Rat Primary Hippocampal Neurons.

Related Publication:

Karunya K. Kandimalla1, Olenych G. Scott, Smita Fulzele1, Michael W. Davidson, Joseph F. Poduslo. Mechanism of Neuronal versus Endothelial Cell Uptake of Alzheimer's Disease Amyloid β Protein. PLoS ONE 4(2): e4627. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0004627.

... Rat primary hippocampal (RPH) neurons were isolated from the hippocampii of 18-day-old embryonic Sprague Dawley rat brains (Neuromics, Edina, MN). The hippocampii were dispersed using a fire polished Pasteur pipette and plated on poly-D-lysine (Sigma-Aldrich, St. Louis, MO) coated glass cover slips in B-27 neurobasal medium containing 0.5 mM glutamine and 25 µM glutamate (Invitrogen, Carlsbad, CA). The neuronal cells were grown under 5% CO2 in an incubator maintained at 37°C until differentiation...

Images: A–D: Uptake of fluorescein labeled Aβ40 (F-Aβ40) and Alexa Fluor® 633 labeled transferrin (AF633-Trf), clathrin-mediated endocytosis marker, in rat primary hippocampal (RPH) neurons following 30 min incubation at 37°C. (A) F-Aβ40 uptake; (B) Uptake of AF633-Trf; (C) Superimposition of images A and B; (D) Overlay of fluorescence images on the DIC image of RPH neurons. E–G: Uptake of F-Aβ40 and AF633-Trf in RPH neurons at 4°C. (E) Uptake of F-Aβ40; (F) No significant neuronal uptake of AF633-Trf at 4°C; (G) Superimposition of images D and E on the DIC image of RPH neurons; H–J: Uptake of F-Aβ40 and AF633-Trf in RPH neurons treated with 10 mM Sodium Azide and 50 mM 2-deoxy glucose, agents that are known to deplete cellular ATP. (H) Uptake of F-Aβ40; (I) No significant cellular uptake of AF633-Trf was observed; (J) Superimposition of images H and I on the DIC image of neurons.doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0004627.g010