Successful culture of primary cells requires obtaining a maximum yield of functionally viable single cells from whole tissues. The primary factors that affect successful dissociation of whole tissue have to do with tissue origin, species, age of the animal, the dissociation medium and enzyme(s) used, the amount of impurities in any crude enzyme preparation, the concentration(s) of enzyme(s), and the temperature and incubation times. While factors dealing with type of tissue and species cannot be controlled, conditions associated with tissue dissociation are manageable.
Live staining astrocytes derived from knock‐in reporter line for GFAP
Somatic cell reprogramming technology enables researchers to build disease models by generating iPSC lines from patient samples, to differentiate them into targeted primary cells, and manifest disease symptoms in vitro.
So far, many disease models for CNS disorders, such as Alzheimer’s disease (AD), Parkinson’s disease (PD), Autism, Schizophrenia, and Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), have been generated using this strategy. However, there is a common limitation for disease models solely based on patient‐derived iPSC lines: the mechanism of action of genetic mutations underlying a disease is often complicated by diverse genetic backgrounds from patient to patient since most genetic mutations associated with CNS disorders have in general small effect on the disease phenotype.
