Aggregating Brain Cell Cultures as a Model to Study Ischaemia-induced Neurodegeneration

Toxicology in Vitro : an International Journal Published in Association with BIBRA
B Pardo, P Honegger

Abstract

Rotation-mediated aggregating brain cell cultures at two different maturational stages (DIV 11 and DIV 20) were subjected for 1 or 2 hours to ischaemic conditions by transient immobilization (arrest of media circulation). During recovery, cell damage was evaluated by measuring changes in cell type-specific enzyme activities and total protein content. It was found that in immature cultures (DIV 11), immobilization for 1 or 2 hours did not affect the parameters measured. By contrast, at DIV 20, ischaemic conditions for 1 hour caused a pronounced decrease in the activities of glutamic acid decarboxylase and choline acetyltransferase. A significant decrease in these neuron-specific enzyme activities was found at post-ischaemic days 1-14, indicating immediate and irreversible neuronal damage. The activity of the astrocyte-specific enzyme, glutamine synthetase, was significantly increased at 4 days post-treatment; equal to control values at 6 days; and significantly decreased at 14 days after the ischaemic insult. Immobilization of DIV 20 cultures for 2 hours caused a drastic reduction in all the parameters measured at post-ischaemic day 6. Generally, the ischaemic conditions appeared to be more detrimental to neurons than to astrocy...Continue Reading

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Citations

May 11, 2016·Journal of Neurotrauma·Thomas W SawyerLori McLaws

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