Short communicationRat brain sagittal organotypic slice cultures as an ex vivo dopamine cell loss system

- Rat brain organotypic slice cultures remain viable for up to 6 weeks in culture.
- Slice 3-dimensional cytoarchitecture is maintained over a 4 week culturing period.
- 6-hydroxydopamine induces a sustained loss of tyrosine hydroxylase expression.
- 6-hydroxydopamine progressively destroys Fluoro-Gold-positive nigral cells.

BackgroundOrganotypic brain slice cultures are a useful tool to study neurological function as they provide a more complex, 3-dimensional system than standard 2-dimensional in vitro cell cultures.New methodBuilding on a previously developed mouse brain slice culture protocol, we have developed a rat sagittal brain slice culture system as an ex vivo model of dopamine cell loss.ResultsWe show that rat brain organotypic slice cultures remain viable for up to 6 weeks in culture. Using Fluoro-Gold axonal tracing, we demonstrate that the slice 3-dimensional cytoarchitecture is maintained over a 4 week culturing period, with particular focus on the nigrostriatal pathway. Treatment of the cultures with 6-hydroxydopamine and desipramine induces a progressive loss of Fluoro-Gold-positive nigral cells with a sustained loss of tyrosine hydroxylase-positive nigral cells. This recapitulates the pattern of dopaminergic degeneration observed in the rat partial 6-hydroxydopamine lesion model and, most importantly, the progressive pathology of Parkinson's disease.Comparison with existing methodsOur slice culture platform provides an advance over other systems, as we demonstrate for the first time 3-dimensional cytoarchitecture maintenance of rat nigrostriatal sagittal slices for up to 6 weeks.ConclusionOur ex vivo organotypic slice culture system provides a long term cellular platform to model Parkinson's disease, allowing for the elucidation of mechanisms involved in dopaminergic neuron degeneration and the capability to study cellular integration and plasticity ex vivo.