A Simple and Efficient Method for Concomitant Isolation and Culture of Enriched Astroglial and Microglial Cells from the Rat Spinal Cord

Abstract

Investigations into glial biology have contributed substantially in understanding the physiology and pathology of the nervous system. However, intricacies of the neuron-glial and glial-glial interactions in vivo present significant challenges while delineating the individual cell-type contributions, thus making the in vitro techniques exceedingly relevant to study glial biology. However, obtaining optimal yield along with high purity has been challenging for microglial cultures. Here we present a simple protocol to establish enriched astroglial as well as microglial cultures from the neonatal rat spinal cord. This method results in highly enriched astroglial and microglial cultures with maximal yield.

Keywords: Astrocytes; Astroglia; Microglia; Primary cultures; Spinal cord.