Primary Cultures - Dissociated and Organotypic Cultures ( Beatrice Pastore )

During this course, the techniques used to obtain primary cultures of nervous tissue will be shortly explained. In the first part of the lesson, we will speak about the methods that permit to obtain dissociated neuronal cultures, starting from the source of the tissue, the enzymes used for the dissociation, the substrates used for the adhesion, until the culture media. During the second part, we will explain what is an organotypic culture, how to prepare and maintain this kind of cultures for long time and when it is better to prefer an organotypic to a dissociated cultures.

As primary cultures are obtained directly from the animal tissues, we will also introduce briefly the current legislation regulating the use of the laboratory animals.