title: Primary cultures of astrocytes from fetal bovine brain.
abstract: We describe here a method to obtain primary cell cultures from the cerebral cortex and the hypothalamus of bovine fetuses. We report how tissue origin, developmental stages, and culture medium conditions influence cell differentiation and the prevalence of glial cells vs. neurons. We compare explants from early, middle, and late stages of development and two different fetal calf serum concentrations (1 and 10%) to identify the best conditions to obtain and grow viable astrocytes in culture. In addition, we describe how to cryopreserve and obtain viable cortical astrocytes from frozen fetal bovine brain samples.
authors.affiliation: Dipartimento di Scienze Sperimentali Veterinarie, Università degli Studi di Padova - Facoltà di Medicina Veterinaria, Legnaro - Agripolis (PD), Padua, Italy. cristina.ballarin@unipd.it
authors.forename: Cristina
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Ballarin
authors.forename: Antonella
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Peruffo
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001253:Astrocytes / Q000166:cytology*; D002417:Cattle; D018929:Cell Culture Techniques / Q000379:methods*; D002454:Cell Differentiation / Q000502:physiology; D002540:Cerebral Cortex / Q000166:cytology*; D015925:Cryopreservation / Q000379:methods*; D005333:Fetus / Q000166:cytology*; D007031:Hypothalamus / Q000166:cytology*; D008856:Microscopy, Fluorescence; D044967:Serum / Q000737:chemistry