title: Quantitative effects of peripheral monocytes and nerve growth factor on CNS neural morphometric outgrowth parameters in vitro.
abstract: Would healing of the central nervous system (CNS) is a complex process involving interactions between cells from both the vascular and the neural environments, extracellular matrix proteins, and a cocktail of agonistic and antagonistic bioactive molecules. Vascular cells, particularly peripheral monocytes and macrophages, are believed to play an important role in organizing and mediating CNS tissue reactions subsequent to penetrating injuries that compromise the blood-brain barrier. Although many investigators have studied the effect of macrophages and microglia (resident brain macrophages) on neural outgrowth, little is known regarding monocyte effects. We have combined tissue culture, video microscopy, and digital image processing and analysis to quantify morphometric parameters of neurons exposed to monocyte secretory products in vitro. The experimental system developed is simple in design but provides a quantitative understanding of cellular function and molecular mechanisms and has the ability to both study processes of graded complexity and relate cellular function to overall systems behavior. We evaluate the efficacy of the experimental model developed by measuring morphometric parameters of human neural cells (hNT cell line) in the presence of nerve growth factor (NGF). Results suggest that monocyte-conditioned media (MCM) increases neuron outgrowth parameters, such as neuritic output, mean arbor output, neurite branching, and effective cell diameter. Moreover, we show that the bioactive factor present in MCM is not IL-1 and the activity of the factor with respect to neural outgrowth is between that of 10 and 100 ng/ml NGF.
authors.affiliation: Cox Laboratory for Biomedical Engineering, Rice University, Houston, Texas 77251-1892, USA.
authors.forename: C W
authors.initials: CW
authors.lastname: Patrick
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Kukreti
authors.forename: L V
authors.initials: LV
authors.lastname: McIntire
mesh_terms: D002460:Cell Line; D002490:Central Nervous System / Q000166:cytology / Q000254:growth & development*; D017077:Culture Media, Conditioned; D006801:Humans; D007375:Interleukin-1 / Q000378:metabolism; D009000:Monocytes / Q000502:physiology*; D009414:Nerve Growth Factors / Q000502:physiology*; D009474:Neurons / Q000502:physiology* / Q000648:ultrastructure
chemical_list: D017077:Culture Media, Conditioned; D007375:Interleukin-1; D009414:Nerve Growth Factors