Neuroscience
At In Vitro Technologies, we are passionate about accelerating scientific discoveries in Neuroscience and helping you make your research a success. Our portfolio of quality, reliable products, supported by a strong and stable team who can assist with troubleshooting problems and identifying solutions, we aim to Accelerate Discovery.
Culturing biological materials can be challenging at times even for the expert culturist. With nearly a century of expertise with cell and microbial cultures, ATCC has acquired and developed a vast body of best practices to aid researchers at all levels of proficiency to maximize the return on their biomaterials investment. The guides below deliver that knowledge and insight to the end user in a portable, easy-to-follow format.
ATCC Stem Cell Culture Guide
Stem cell culture remains a challenge, even with the knowledge that scientists have gained over the past decades. Learn best practices for keeping your stem cells happy.
GET THE GUIDE >
ATCC Organoid Culture Guide
Organoids are micro tissues grown within a 3-D extracellular matrix; these complex models better represent in vivo physiology and genetic diversity than existing two-dimensional cell lines.
GET THE GUIDE >
The 100 billion cells of the brain and nervous system control every aspect of the human body, including heart rate, appetite, emotion, memory, immune response, and more. Cells of the nervous system are well specialized and rarely undergo mitosis once differentiated.
With ATCC, we support your neuroscience research with authenticated cells and biomaterials you can rely on for your research.
> Confirm the Identity and Purity of your cells
ATCC also offers a complete system of normal and Parkinson’s disease tri-lineage—capable, neural progenitor cells (NPCs), lineage marker—labeled NPCs, and expansion and differentiation media. Work with differentiating or terminally differentiated neurons, astrocytes, and oligodendrocytes much sooner and yield faster results.
- • Neural progenitor cells (Parkinson’s disease)
- • Neural progenitor cells
- • Neural progenitor expansion kit
- • Dopaminergic differentiation kit
> Watch the webinar
Glioma Tumor Cell Panel
ATCC offers brain cancer cell panels for you brain cancer research.
Schwann Cells
These cells can be valuable in the development of therapies for neuropathy.
- • Tau protein FRET biosensor cell line
- • Neural progenitor cells: Normal and Parkinson's
- • Normal and disease iPSCs
- • Schwann cells
Human induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSC)-derived neural progenitor cells (NPCs) and neurons are an attractive in vitro model to study neurological development, neurotoxicity and to model diseases. However, there is a lack of validated normal and Parkinson’s NPCs and media that support differentiation into multiple types of neurons for disease modeling, drug screening, and toxicity screening.
> DOWNLOAD the poster to explore the use of iPSC-derived NPCs in neurological development research.
NPCs Parkinson’s
Parkinson’s disease NPCs for neuronal differentiation; drug and toxicological screening.
Neural Progenitor Cells
These cells are useful for neuronal differentiation and drug screening.
The ATCC collection has many neural cell lines, representing the normal and diseased tissue of multiple species such as neurons and the supporting cells of the central and peripheral nervous system.
- • Astrocytes and astrocytomas
- • Brain-derived cell lines
- • Brain cancer cell panels
RNA ISH Technology for Spatial Gene Expression
With more than 600 identified neurological diseases and an aging population, research is under way to understand the underlying causes and possible cures for these often-devastating disorders. Neurodegenerative disorders include Alzheimer’s Disease, ALS, Huntington’s Disease, Multiple Sclerosis, and Parkinson’s Disease. Recent research also points to the role of neuroinflammation and neuroimmune response in prevalent neurological diseases, and studies have shown that changes in cytokines, lymphocytes, and some epigenetic mechanisms affect CNS processes and can be associated with reduced cognitive abilities and occurrence of several neurodegenerative diseases.
Neurodegenerative diseases are complex. Understanding the molecular mechanisms of Neurological disease development and progression is key to identifying potential therapeutic targets, through biomarker analysis as well as protein localization and gene expression. RNAscope® in situ hybridization (ISH) technology enables cell- and tissue-specific localization of RNA transcripts quickly and precisely for functionally important targets in the nervous system.
Furthermore, dual IHC and ISH techniques enable detailed evaluation of the expression and localization of both proteins and genes in intact tissue sections, where natural anatomical features are preserved. Download the following application notes for more information and examples about how ACD Bio can help accelerate your discoveries so you can publish faster.
Channelopathies are responsible for a range of brain disorders and are caused by abnormal ion channel function. There is a need for better understanding of the underlying pathophysiology of these channel-based disorders, as individuals presenting with clinical phenotypes are difficult to diagnose and treat.
Smith et al.,* discovered an unexpected association between one particular channelopathy, connecting sodium channels to cortical folding and brain development. They described an abnormal developmental disorder of the brain, polymicrogyria (PMG), that is associated with pathogenic variants in the sodium channel gene SCN3A. They showed that SCN3A is robustly expressed in cerebral cortex during fetal gestation but downregulated after birth. Conversely, SCN1A is lower during gestation and upregulated postnatally.
They used the RNAscope Multiplex Fluorescent Assay v2 in fetal human brain and revealed the highest SCN3A expression in the cortical plate (CP), which contains immature neurons, whereas the adult human showed very low SCN3A expression across all cortical layers.
In our recent Spotlight Interview Dr. Smith explains how the RNAscope ISH assay, with its specificity and multiplex capabilities proved a critical assay for discovering novel findings that provide an important diagnostic marker and challenge the accepted dogma of human cerebral cortical folding.
> Read more publications on neural development
During learning and memory formation, gene expression is dynamically regulated in response to experience-dependent neuronal activity. In particular, the expression of immediate-early genes (IEGs) including c-fos, and Arc is rapidly and transiently altered in specific neurons or neuronal ensembles in brain areas involved in the learning and memory processing of a certain task/activity. Therefore, the visualization of IEG mRNA expression patterns have widely been used as a molecular readout for neuronal populations that are engaged in generating and encoding long-term memories.
To further characterize activated neuronal cell populations, RNAscope multiplexing capability enables IEG mRNA detection in combination with other targets or cell type markers.
Application Note
Learn more in our RNAscope Neuroscience Application Note - Detection of RNA in the central and peripheral nervous system using the RNAscope in situ hybridization assay
Detection of RNA in the central and peripheral nervous system using the RNAscope in situ hybridization assay
> Download the application note
The RNAscope assay can be used for the visualization of multiple target co-expression patterns or the co-expression of the target(s) of interest with desired cell type markers that characterize particular types of neurons or glia. Commonly used cell type markers to distinguish neuronal and glial target expression patterns include Rbfox3, Aif1, and Gfap for the detection of neurons, microglia and astrocytes, respectively. The striatum harbors two distinct neuronal populations that either express Dopamine Receptor D1 (Drd1) – the striatonigral pathway – or Dopamine Receptor D2 (Drd2) - the striatopallidal pathway. These different neuronal cell types can be accurately detected and visualized using the RNAscope technology.
Application Note
Learn more in our RNAscope Neuroscience Application Review - Cellular localization of RNA expression in central and peripheral nervous system using RNAscope Technology.
Cellular localization of RNA expression in central and peripheral nervous system using RNAscope Technology
> Download the application note
Stem cells have the potential to develop into many different types of cells in the body. All stem cells have three general attributes: they can divide and renew themselves for long periods; they are unspecialized; and they can give rise to specialized cell types.
When unspecialized stem cells give rise to specialized cells, differentiation occurs. During the process of differentiation, cells go through several stages, becoming more specialized at each step. Stem cells differentiate into specific cell types and thus show therapeutic promise as a renewable source of replacement cells and tissues to treat numerous diseases including spinal cord injury, stroke, burns, heart disease, diabetes, macular degeneration, neurodegenerative disease, osteoarthritis, and rheumatoid arthritis.
> Watch the webinar
Expression of LGR5 RNA (brown dots) in human colorectal cancer tissue, RNA in situ hybridization (ISH) using RNAscope™ 2.0 HD Reagent Kit-BROWN.
The rapid and expansive field of stem cell biology has demonstrated the remarkable capabilities of these cells to self-renew, differentiate and reprogram. Yet the field continues to expand with studies trying to elucidate stem cell populations, characterize stem cell markers and identify the signals secreted from stem cells. RNAscope® in situ hybridization (ISH) technology enables cell-specific localization of RNA transcripts quickly and precisely for markers of stem cell populations.
The RNAscope® assay can be used to:
• Detect stem cell markers when no reliable antibodies are available
RNA expression of PTPRC (CD45) (green), IFNG (red) and of CD274 (PDL1) (white) in human lung cancer FFPE tissue using RNAscope LS Multiplex Fluorescent Assay
Inflammation is associated with a wide range of diseases, including asthma, arthritis, cancer, obesity, heart disease, colitis and neurological disorders, among many others. Detection of secreted factors and their receptors and cellular origin, as well as other biomarkers, are critical for understanding, diagnosing and treating many inflammatory diseases.
The RNAscope™ in situ hybridization assay offers a very reliable and robust method for the detection and validation of inflammatory biomarkers within the tissue environment and can be performed on routinely available FFPE samples. Several studies have been published demonstrating the application of the RNAscope ISH assay in inflammatory-related research:
Metabolic Dysfunction as an Indicator of Disease
Mitochondria play central roles in meeting the demands of neuronal synapses for energy (ATP). Mitochondrial dysfunction results in impaired neuroplasticity, neuronal degeneration and cell death, and is now recognized as a key element in neurodegenerative diseases, including Alzheimer’s and Huntington’s diseases, Dementia with Lewy bodies, and Parkinson’s disease. The development of model assay systems such as primary neurons, isolated brain mitochondria and pre-synaptic nerve terminals (synpaptosomes) from specific brain regions have enabled identification of mitochondrial defects associated with neurodegenerative diseases.
The Seahorse XF Analyzer has been shown to handle small sample sizes to monitor mitochondrial respiratory parameters of synaptosomes using 50-fold less protein than previously possible.
A recent announcement by La Trobe University described an exciting step forward in the possibilities of early diagnosis of Parkinson’s Disease.
Through the bioenergetic analysis of blood cells, this test will enable the detection of abnormal metabolism in the blood cells in people with Parkinson's, opening up the possibility of early treatment for the disease. Key to this research was the Seahorse Extracellular Flux Analyser, used to analyse the bioenergetic phenotype of cells, and which may be used to identify similar mitochondrial disfunctions in other neurodegenerative conditions such as Huntington’s and Alzheimers disease.
Other Resources:
Agilent Technologies application note here:
https://www.agilent.com/cs/library/applications/appnote-primary-neuronal-difficiencies.pdf
Learn more about Agilent Technologies (Seahorse Bioscience) here:
https://lifescience.invitro.com.au/brands/agilent-technologies-seahorse-bioscience/
