Abstract
Primary cultures are an important in vitro tool to study cellular processes and interactions. These cultures are complex systems, composed of many cell types, including neurons, astrocytes, oligodendrocytes, microglia, NG2 cells, and endothelial cells. For some studies it is necessary to be able to study a pure culture of one cell type, or eliminate a particular cell type, to better understand its function. There exist cell culture protocols for making pure astrocyte or microglia cultures. Here we present two protocols to produce cultures depleted for microglia: in the first case, from a mixed astrocyte–microglia culture and, in the second, for eliminating microglia from neuronal cultures.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Pelvig DP, Pakkenberg H, Stark AK et al (2008) Neocortical glial cell numbers in human brains. Neurobiol Aging 29(11):1754–1762
Saura J (2007) Microglial cells in astroglial cultures: a cautionary note. J Neuroinflammation 4:26
Stellwagen D, Malenka RC (2006) Synaptic scaling mediated by glial TNF-alpha. Nature 440(7087):1054–1059
Pascual O, Ben Achour S, Rostaing P et al (2012) Microglia activation triggers astrocyte-mediated modulation of excitatory neurotransmission. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 109(4):E197–205
Saijo K, Winner B, Carson CT et al (2009) A Nurr1/CoREST pathway in microglia and astrocytes protects dopaminergic neurons from inflammation-induced death. Cell 137(1):47–59
Bezzi P, Domercq M, Brambilla L et al (2001) CXCR4-activated astrocyte glutamate release via TNFalpha: amplification by microglia triggers neurotoxicity. Nat Neurosci 4(7):702–710
McCarthy KD, de Vellis J (1980) Preparation of separate astroglial and oligodendroglial cell cultures from rat cerebral tissue. J Cell Biol 85(3):890–902
Holm TH, Draeby D, Owens T (2012) Microglia are required for astroglial Toll-like receptor 4 response and for optimal TLR2 and TLR3 response. Glia 60(4):630–638
Hamby ME, Uliasz TF, Hewett SJ et al (2006) Characterization of an improved procedure for the removal of microglia from confluent monolayers of primary astrocytes. J Neurosci Methods 150(1):128–137
Giulian D, Baker TJ (1986) Characterization of ameboid microglia isolated from developing mammalian brain. J Neurosci 6(8):2163–2178
Brahmachari S, Fung YK, Pahan K (2006) Induction of glial fibrillary acidic protein expression in astrocytes by nitric oxide. J Neurosci 26(18):4930–4939
Alfonso-Loeches S, Pascual-Lucas M, Blanco AM et al (2010) Pivotal role of TLR4 receptors in alcohol-induced neuroinflammation and brain damage. J Neurosci 30(24):8285–8295
Hewett JA, Hewett SJ, Winkler S et al (1999) Inducible nitric oxide synthase expression in cultures enriched for mature oligodendrocytes is due to microglia. J Neurosci Res 56(2):189–198
Sola C, Casal C, Tusell JM et al (2002) Astrocytes enhance lipopolysaccharide-induced nitric oxide production by microglial cells. Eur J Neurosci 16(7):1275–1283
Beattie EC, Stellwagen D, Morishita W et al (2002) Control of synaptic strength by glial TNFalpha. Science 295(5563):2282–2285
Barres BA (2008) The mystery and magic of glia: a perspective on their roles in health and disease. Neuron 60(3):430–440
Burnett SH, Kershen EJ, Zhang J et al (2004) Conditional macrophage ablation in transgenic mice expressing a Fas-based suicide gene. J Leukoc Biol 75(4):612–623
Marin-Teva JL, Dusart I, Colin C, Gervais A et al (2004) Microglia promote the death of developing Purkinje cells. Neuron 41(4):535–547
Montero Dominguez M, Gonzalez B, Zimmer J (2009) Neuroprotective effects of the anti-inflammatory compound triflusal on ischemia-like neurodegeneration in mouse hippocampal slice cultures occur independent of microglia. Exp Neurol 218(1):11–23
Montero M, Gonzalez B, Zimmer J (2009) Immunotoxic depletion of microglia in mouse hippocampal slice cultures enhances ischemia-like neurodegeneration. Brain Res 1291:140–152
Reeves JP (1979) Accumulation of amino acids by lysosomes incubated with amino acid methyl esters. J Biol Chem 254(18):8914–8921
Thiele DL, Kurosaka M, Lipsky PE (1983) Phenotype of the accessory cell necessary for mitogen-stimulated T and B cell responses in human peripheral blood: delineation by its sensitivity to the lysosomotropic agent, l-leucine methyl ester. J Immunol 131(5):2282–2290
Wiley RG, Oeltmann TN, Lappi DA (1991) Immunolesioning: selective destruction of neurons using immunotoxin to rat NGF receptor. Brain Res 562(1):149–153
Uliasz TF, Hamby ME, Jackman NA et al (2012) Generation of primary astrocyte cultures devoid of contaminating microglia. Methods Mol Biol (Clifton, NJ) 814:61–79
Maddox DE, Shibata S, Goldstein IJ (1982) Stimulated macrophages express a new glycoprotein receptor reactive with Griffonia simplicifolia I-B4 isolectin. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 79(1):166–170
Streit WJ, Kreutzberg GW (1987) Lectin binding by resting and reactive microglia. J Neurocytol 16(2):249–260
Laitinen L (1987) Griffonia simplicifolia lectins bind specifically to endothelial cells and some epithelial cells in mouse tissues. Histochem J 19(4):225–234
Fang X, Djouhri L, McMullan S et al (2006) Intense isolectin-B4 binding in rat dorsal root ganglion neurons distinguishes C-fiber nociceptors with broad action potentials and high Nav1.9 expression. J Neurosci 26(27):7281–7292
Acknowledgments
We thank Sarrah Ben Achour for preliminary experiments and thank Yasmine Belarif-Cantaut for the helpful discussion with the Saporin protocol. The work was supported by a grant from the seventh Framework Program Moodinflame (222963).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2013 Springer Science+Business Media New York
About this protocol
Cite this protocol
Pont-Lezica, L., Colasse, S., Bessis, A. (2013). Depletion of Microglia from Primary Cellular Cultures. In: Joseph, B., Venero, J. (eds) Microglia. Methods in Molecular Biology, vol 1041. Humana Press, Totowa, NJ. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-62703-520-0_7
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-62703-520-0_7
Published:
Publisher Name: Humana Press, Totowa, NJ
Print ISBN: 978-1-62703-519-4
Online ISBN: 978-1-62703-520-0
eBook Packages: Springer Protocols