title: Volume measurements in cultured primary astrocytes.
abstract: Damage to the central nervous system (CNS) is selective, likely reflecting the intrinsic properties of -individual cell types. Targets of chemical injury are diverse hence assessing neurotoxicity is extremely difficult. Overcoming this obstacle requires a general screen or "marker" for injury that reflects cellular damage. The "marker" must be reliable and represent a biochemical event which broadly reflects cellular stress and damage. One such "marker" is cell swelling; it occurs in response to a diversity of insults, such as physical damage, disease (ischemia, trauma, and hypoxia), and chemicals (methylmercury, lead, 1,3-dinitrobenzene, and triethyltin). In astrocytes, a type of glia, astrocytic swelling can be measured with several methods. Commonly, freshly isolated astrocytes are grown to confluence on coverslips, a period requiring 3 weeks in culture. At this time, astrocytic volume can be measured using either an impedance technique or 3-O-methyl-D-glucose to assess cell volume. This review will briefly detail these methods and provide insight into molecular mechanisms associated with cell swelling and the ensuing regulatory decrease (RVD).
authors.affiliation: Department of Pediatrics, Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, Nashville, TN, USA. michael.aschner@vanderbilt.edu
authors.forename: Michael
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Aschner
mesh_terms: D019325:3-O-Methylglucose / Q000737:chemistry / Q000378:metabolism; D000818:Animals; D000831:Animals, Newborn; D001253:Astrocytes / Q000166:cytology* / Q000502:physiology; D048429:Cell Size; D003584:Cytological Techniques / Q000295:instrumentation / Q000379:methods; D055724:Electrophysiological Phenomena; D061251:Primary Cell Culture; D051381:Rats
chemical_list: D019325:3-O-Methylglucose