Overview of Neural Cell Culture Models
The architectural complexity and cellular diversity of the mammalian brain represent major challenges to the pursuit of etiological factors that underlie human brain disorders. A further impediment particular to the analysis of brain diseases is their protracted time course. And although animal models have greatly informed current views on these disorders, they have often failed to recapitulate key aspects of the diseases. Thus, reductionist in vitro approaches using human cells, such as the analysis of patient-derived neurons generated using induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSC), have been met with particular excitement.
More advances have been achieved recently, such as the genetic correction of disease-associated mutations in patient-derived cultures, accelerating the study of pathological mechanisms of neurological diseases. Even with such advances, cell-based approaches to studying human neural diseases are limited by the inherent genetic diversity of the human population, as well as technical variation among accessible human tissue samples. Recent studies using human reprogramming-based cell models of neuronal disorders have brought several mechanistic topics to the fore, including the significance of non-neuronal or non-cell-autonomous factors in disease, the relevance of epigenetic mechanisms, and the potential of cell-based drug discovery approaches.
Diverse Cell Culture Models at Creative Biolabs
- Primary Neuronal Cell Culture Models
Neurons in primary culture are prepared directly from animal brain tissue and do not divide in culture. After isolation and plating, neurons form synapses and become electrically active, acquiring a neuronal phenotype, and ultimately dye. Cerebellar granule cells are interneurons in the granular layer of the cerebellar cortex and represent the largest neuronal population in the cerebellum.
- Human iPSC Derived Neuronal Cell Culture Models
iPSC technique delivers large and reproducible quantities of relevant human neural cells suitable to support the development of new therapies. This technique greatly contributes to the exploration of many neurological disorders burdened with poorly translatable preclinical animal models, limited access to viable human primary tissue, and high unmet medical need.
