Organotypic cultures of the spinal cord possess significant advantages, as compared with routine cell systems in vitro; the cytoarchitectonics, cytospecificity of the cells, cell-to-cell connections, and other characteristics of spinal cord tissues are preserved to a considerable extent. We analyzed structural/functional characteristics of organotypic spinal cord slices of mice under conditions of long-lasting (one to three weeks) culturing. Immunohistochemical staining and patch-clamp recordings from cells of the substantia gelatinosa showed that the morphology of different cell types and cell-to-cell connections typical of normal spinal nerve tissue are clearly manifested in such organotypic spinal cord cultures. This is why that such a technique of spinal cord culturing can be successfully used in subsequent experimental studies, in particular, in the examination of different-type damages of the spinal cord.
Article PDF
Similar content being viewed by others
Avoid common mistakes on your manuscript.
References
M. Heidemann, J. Streit, and A. Tscherter, “Investigating functional regeneration in organotypic spinal cord co-cultures grown on multi-electrode arrays,” J. Vis. Exp., 103, e53121, doi: 10.3791/53121 (2015).
H. M. Kim, H. J. Lee, M. Y. Lee, et al., “Organotypic spinal cord slice culture to study neural stem/progenitor cell microenvironment in the injured spinal cord,” Exp. Neurobiol., 19, No. 2, 106–113 (2010).
J. Gerardo-Nava, D. Hodde, I. Katona, et al., “Spinal cord organotypic slice cultures for the study of regenerating motor axon interactions with 3D scaffolds,” Biomaterials, 35, No. 14, p. 4288-4296 (2014).
M. Ravikumar, S. Jain, R. H. Miller, et al., “An organotypic spinal cord slice culture model to quantify neurodegeneration,” J. Neurosci. Methods, 211, No. 2, 280-288 (2012).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Rybachuk, O.A., Lazarenko, Y.A., Krotov, V.V. et al. Structural/Functional Characteristics of Organotypic Spinal Cord Slices under Conditions of Long-Lasting Culturing. Neurophysiology 49, 162–164 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11062-017-9647-5
Received:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11062-017-9647-5