Primary Cell Culture and Isolation Services

Primary cell culture models harvest and maintain cells from living organisms. In comparison to immortalized cell lines, which face changes over time due to genetic drift and environmental pressures, primary cell culture models remain significantly closer to their host organism both genetically and functionally.

At Creative Biolabs, our vast array of cell culture models and cell-based assays allow us to accommodate the needs of any project. For further information regarding our products and services, specific project consultations, and pricing, please submit an inquiry here.

Custom Cell Isolation

The typical culture follows this pipeline: First, specific brain regions or spinal cord tissue are dissected from embryonic rodent pups, followed by isolation and plating of the cells in optimized culture conditions. Once the cells reach the desired developmental stage, they can be treated with compounds of interest. The specifics of the data collection depend on the desired readouts, but can include live-cell imaging, quantitative PCR, ELISA, and many other assays.

Our Neuros Team has developed extensive expertise in the field of neuroscience, particularly in the extraction of primary neural cells. We specialize in isolating various neural cell types from different brain regions, such as the hippocampus and cortex.

Below are our popular primary cell culture models, which received good feedback from scientists:

Mono-Culture & Co-Culture

Fig. 1 A simple visual aid demonstrating
the differences between mono-culture and co-culture.¹

Typical neuronal primary culture selects only neurons. Historically, this is because mono-cultures are easier to define and maintain. This holds true today, but as neuronal function continues to be better defined in literature and methods improve, researchers have shifted focus to include the contributions of glia. The brain is a complex environment consisting of hundreds of different cell types forming intricate and discrete 3D structures. To preserve some of this complexity researchers use co-culture models which support the cultivation of glia in addition to neurons. This allows insight into the responses of neurons, and glia, and the interplay between their responses. The figure on the right illustrates said interplay, as co-culturing these major neuronal cell types leads to a morphological and expressive change in all.

Choosing between neuronal culture and co-culture models is again project-specific. An experiment testing the effect of a drug that aims to increase the firing rate of neurons may be more fit for neuron-only cultures (though they can also be performed on co-culture plates) On the other hand, experiments investigating inflammatory responses in the brain are more fit for co-culture models.

Downstream Testing

Downstream of primary culture, we offer several different experimental methods to generate data. Depending on the nature of the project, one or more of these methods would be used to capture the results. Below are the experiments we offer. This list is by no means exhaustive– if your project requires an assay not listed here, contact us here and we will let you know if we are able to accommodate your needs.

Reference

1. Luchena, Celia et al., "A Neuron, Microglia, and Astrocyte Triple Co-culture Model to Study Alzheimer's Disease." Front Aging Neurosci. 2022;14:844534. Distributed under Open Access License CC BY 4.0. The original image was modified.