An acute mouse spinal cord slice preparation for studying glial activation ex vivo
| Author | Affiliation | |
|---|---|---|
Garré, Juan Mauricio | ||
This work was supported by National Institutes of Health Grants NS45287 and NS55363 to M.V.L.B. and NS072238 to F.F.B., National Institutes of Health Grants GM107469 and AG048410 to G.Y. and the Research Council of Lithuania MIP-76/2015 to F.F.B.
Pathological conditions such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, spinal cord injury and chronic pain are characterized by activation of astrocytes and microglia in spinal cord and have been modeled in rodents. In vivo imaging at cellular level in these animal models is limited due to the spinal cord’s highly myelinated funiculi. The preparation of acute slices may offer an alternative and valuable strategy to collect structural and functional information in vitro from dorsal, lateral and ventral regions of spinal cord. Here, we describe a procedure for preparing acute slices from mouse spinal cord (Garré et al., 2016). This preparation should allow further understanding of how glial cells in spinal cord respond acutely to various inflammatory challenges.