A novel model of glioma cell invasion was established by using an organotypic culture of rat brains. Brain slices prepared from 2-day-old rat neonates were maintained in a culture at the interface between air and the culture medium. The slices were placed on double-layered membranes consisting of a polycarbonate membrane with 8-/im pores and a mem brane with 0.4-fim pores. The organotypic cytoa...

Protein misfolding is a key pathological event in neurodegenerative diseases like prion diseases, synucleinopathies, and tauopathies that are collectively termed protein misfolding disorders. Prions are a prototypic model to study protein aggregation biology and therapeutic development. Attempts to develop anti-prion therapeutics have been impeded by the lack of screening models that faithfully...

Cells within the normal human colonic epithelium undergo a dynamic cycle of growth, differentiation, and death. The organotypic culture system of human fetal colonic epithelial cells seeded on top of collagen gels with embedded colonic fibroblasts allowed prolonged culture of the colonic epithelial cells (Kalabis J, Patterson MJ, Enders GM, Marian B, Iozzo RV, Rogler G, Gimotty PA, Herlyn M. FA...

A human neuroblastoma was maintained in a continuing organ culture, in which three-dimensional organization and cell proliferation occurred together. Electron micrographs of the cells showed a typical immature appearance: scant cytoplasm, numerous free ribosomes, poorly developed granular endoplasmic reticulum, and a large nucleus and prominent nucleolus. Cellular processes with microtubules we...

Brain tumors are a major cause of cancer-related morbidity and mortality. Developing new therapeutics for these cancers is difficult, as many of these tumors are not easily grown in standard culture conditions. Neurosphere cultures under serum-free conditions and orthotopic xenografts have expanded the range of tumors that can be maintained. However, many types of brain tumors remain difficult ...

The molecular microenvironment of the injured spinal cord does not support survival and differentiation of either grafted or endogenous NSCs, restricting the effectiveness of the NSC-based cell replacement strategy. Studying the biology of NSCs in in vivo usually requires a considerable amount of time and cost, and the complexity of the in vivo system makes it difficult to identify individual e...