Neurons, Astrocytes and Microglia Co-culture Assay

As an expert in the field of neuroscience, Creative Biolabs has successfully developed efficient multi-cell culture assays. We specialize in providing customized neurons, astrocytes and microglia co-culture assay services to customers around the world to advance your neurological disease related projects.

Background of Co-culture

Neural co-culture is a flexible in vitro culture strategy involving several neuronal cell types. Interactions of neurons with other cell types in the central nervous system (CNS), such as microglia and astrocytes, are closely related to brain biofunctions as well as neuroinflammatory and neurodegenerative responses. Therefore, compared with traditional cell culture, neural co-culture can better simulate the complex relationship between cells, providing a broad prospect for exploring neurological diseases and neurological functions. Many in vitro models for neuroinflammation have been established, which are widely used to study molecular pathways. Co-cultures of neurons and astrocytes are used to investigate neurological diseases in vitro while astrocyte or microglia cultures in vitro are effective strategies to explore molecular pathways involved in neuroinflammation. However, interactions between neurons, astrocytes, and microglia cannot be captured in the above models. To better understand the effects of cellular crosstalk on neuroinflammation, new multicellular co-culture models are needed.

Fig.1 Glial cells and AD pathogenesis. (Lian & Zheng, 2016)

Construction of Co-culture at Creative Biolabs

To address the shortcomings of traditional in vitro models of neuroinflammation, Creative Biolabs provides a classic cell co-culture assay consisting of three cell types: neurons, astrocytes and microglia. Compared with existing co-cultures, the triple-culture model realistically simulates the neuroinflammatory response and improves the accuracy of predicting neuroinflammatory phenomena in vivo.

Fig.2 Tri-culture media is capable of supporting neurons, astrocytes, and microglia. (Goshi, et al., 2020)

Services at Creative Biolabs

The main processes of the triple co-culture model include culture media preparation, general cell culture, neuroinflammatory challenges, and outcome assays. The services we provide include but are not limited to:

• Immunostaining
• Morphological analysis
• Apoptosis assay
• Calcium imaging

Compared to standard monocultures and cocultures, this in vitro model more faithfully mimics neuroinflammatory responses. In short, the triple co-culture model has gradually emerged as a promising technique for studying neuroinflammation in vitro.

Advantages of Triple Co-culture

The triple co-culture model is an attractive platform to explore mechanisms associated with neurological diseases, exhibiting several advantages, such as:

1. Triple co-culture is easy to conduct, requires a short time and is simple to set up.
2. Triple co-culture is widely used to probe the pathology of neurological diseases.
3. Through this triple co-culture, Alzheimer's disease (AD) features such as tau phosphorylation, Aβ aggregation and microglial recruitment are readily elucidated.
4. Triple co-culture plays an important role in exploring the neurotoxicity of neuron-glial interactions.
5. The triple co-culture system also involves the exploration of the complement system cascade.

With our extensive experience and advanced platform, Creative Biolabs is focused on providing comprehensive co-culture assay services to customers worldwide. Please contact us for details on our co-culture models and assays.

References

1. Lian, H.; Zheng, H. Signaling pathways regulating neuron–glia interaction and their implications in Alzheimer's disease. Journal of neurochemistry. 2016, 136(3): 475-491.
2. Goshi, N.; et al. A primary neural cell culture model to study neuron, astrocyte, and microglia interactions in neuroinflammation. Journal of neuroinflammation. 2020, 17(1): 1-6.