Primary Rat Cortical Neurons

The cerebral cortex plays an important role in memory, higher thinking, perception and the understanding of language. Our Primary Rat Cortical Neurons (RCN) are isolated from early embryonic stage (E18) Sprague-Dawley Rats and provided cryopreserved as primary cells. Post-thaw viability is consistently in the range of 50-80%. Each vial of rat cortical neurons contains at least 4 million viable cells.

 High Post-thaw  & Long-term Viability

Figure 1. Long-Term Viability - Rat cortical neurons (GSC-8220) remain viable during long term culturing. Above images show cells at 1 week (A), 2  weeks (B) and 3 weeks (C) in culture.

Figure 2. Healthy, Mature Cortical Neurons Post-thaw - Primary rat cortical neurons (GSC-8220) were isolated from Sprague-Dawley (E18) rats. MAP-2 (green) staining shows that greater than 90% of the isolated cells are neurons. Dapi staining (blue) denotes cell nuclei.

Functionally Identical to Fresh Neurons

Figure 3. Evoked Synaptic Release Activity -  Cryopreserved and Freshly isolated primary rat neurons were each plated at 80,000 cells per well and grown for 3 weeks. All the cells in the well were stimulated simultaneously.  Above data shows our cryopreserved primary rat neurons exhibit evoked synpatic release responses virtually identical to that of fresh isolated rat forebrain neurons. The fluorescent readout was a measure of pre-synaptic release.  Data courtesy of Pascal Laeng (Galenea)

Suitable Applications

 A) Gene Expression Assays

Figure 4. Neuronal Transfection - Rat Cortical Neurons (GSC-8220) were transfected with GeneIn-CNS at high efficiency, while maintaining maximal cell viability.

B) Calcium Assays