title: Survival assay of transiently transfected dopaminergic neurons.
abstract: Death pathways in the apoptotic neurons are mostly studied by manipulating the levels of apoptosis-related proteins and counting the survival/death of affected neurons. Such assays are, however, technically complicated. We developed a transfection-survival assay for cultured embryonic dopaminergic (DA) neurons induced to die by deprivation of glial cell line-derived neurotrophic factor (GDNF). The calcium phosphate co-precipitation technique was used to transfect DA neurons. Microisland cultures and co-transfected enhanced green fluorescent protein allowed direct counting of transfected neurons from the same cultures at the beginning and the end of GDNF deprivation, whereas post hoc subtraction of tyrosine hydroxylase-negative neurons allowed exclusion of transfected non-DA neurons. Overexpression of dominant-negative mutant of caspase-6 significantly blocked the death of GDNF-deprived DA neurons. Thus, we have found a tool not only to transfect the neurons dissociated from midbrain, but also to analyze the apoptotic proteins particularly in DA neurons.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Biotechnology, University of Helsinki, FIN-00014, Helsinki, Finland.
authors.forename: Li-Ying
authors.initials: LY
authors.lastname: Yu
authors.forename: Urmas
authors.initials: U
authors.lastname: Arumäe
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D017209:Apoptosis / Q000502:physiology; D001681:Biological Assay / Q000379:methods*; D019208:Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor / Q000172:deficiency*; D002130:Calcium Phosphates / Q000494:pharmacology; D053178:Caspase 6 / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism; D018929:Cell Culture Techniques / Q000379:methods; D016923:Cell Death / Q000502:physiology; D002470:Cell Survival / Q000502:physiology; D002478:Cells, Cultured; D004298:Dopamine / Q000378:metabolism*; D049452:Green Fluorescent Proteins / Q000235:genetics*; D008636:Mesencephalon / Q000166:cytology / Q000378:metabolism; D051379:Mice; D018613:Microscopy, Confocal; D009474:Neurons / Q000166:cytology / Q000378:metabolism*; D015398:Signal Transduction / Q000502:physiology; D014162:Transfection / Q000379:methods*; D014446:Tyrosine 3-Monooxygenase / Q000378:metabolism
chemical_list: D019208:Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor; D002130:Calcium Phosphates; C485184:enhanced green fluorescent protein; D049452:Green Fluorescent Proteins; C020243:calcium phosphate; D014446:Tyrosine 3-Monooxygenase; D053178:Caspase 6; D004298:Dopamine