title: Establishment of a Long-Term Chick Forebrain Neuronal Culture on a Microelectrode Array Platform.
abstract: The biosensor system formed by culturing primary animal neurons on a microelectrode array (MEA) platform is drawing an increasing research interest for its power as a rapid, sensitive, functional neurotoxicity assessment, as well as for many other electrophysiological related research purposes. In this paper, we established a long-term chick forebrain neuron culture (C-FBN-C) on MEAs with a more than 5 month long lifespan and up to 5 month long stability in morphology and physiological function; characterized the C-FBN-C morphologically, functionally, and developmentally; partially compared its functional features with rodent counterpart; and discussed its pros and cons as a novel biosensor system in comparison to rodent counterpart and human induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs). Our results show that C-FBN-C on MEA platform 1) can be used as a biosensor of its own type in a wide spectrum of basic biomedical research; 2) is of value in comparative physiology in cross-species studies; and 3) may have potential to be used as an alternative, cost-effective approach to rodent counterpart within shared common functional domains (such as specific types of ligand-gated ion channel receptors and subtypes expressed in the cortical tissues of both species) in large-scale environmental neurotoxicant screening that would otherwise require millions of animals.
authors.affiliation: William Beaumont School of Medicine, Oakland University, Rochester, MI 49309, USA.
authors.forename: Serena Y
authors.initials: SY
authors.lastname: Kuang
authors.affiliation: Academy for Advanced Interdisciplinary Studies, Center for Biomedical Materials and Tissue Engineering, Peking University, Beijing, 100871, China.
authors.forename: Ting
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Huang
authors.affiliation: Department of Bioengineering, Clemson University, 201-5 Rhodes Research Hall, Clemson, SC 29634, USA.
authors.forename: Zhonghai
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: National Engineering Laboratory for Regenerative Implantable Medical Devices, Guangzhou, Guangdong 510530, China.
authors.forename: Yongliang
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Lin
authors.affiliation: Departments of Neuroscience and Regenerative Medicine and Cell Biology, Medical University of South Carolina, Charleston, SC 29466, USA.
authors.forename: Mark
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Kindy
authors.affiliation: Academy for Advanced Interdisciplinary Studies, Center for Biomedical Materials and Tissue Engineering, Peking University, Beijing, 100871, China.
authors.forename: Tingfei
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Xi
authors.affiliation: Department of Bioengineering, Clemson University, 201-5 Rhodes Research Hall, Clemson, SC 29634, USA.
authors.forename: Bruce Z
authors.initials: BZ
authors.lastname: Gao
keywords: biosensor; chick forebrain neuron; long-term culture; microelectrode array