Rat Primary Cortical Astrocytes - FAQs

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10 product FAQs found

What are some of the key applications for astrocytes?

Astrocytes can be used to research cell transplantation, intracellular transport, ion-channel function, toxicity, receptor signaling, analyses of electrophysiological properties, neurotransmitter release, and evaluation of interaction between neurons and astrocytes.

I used rat primary cortical astrocytes from another company and observed cell aggregates after thawing but not with the astrocytes from your company. Why?

Gibco Rat Primary Cortical Astrocytes were dissociated into single cells before cryopreservation, which gives an advantage to control the number of cells to plate.

How can I coat Gibco Rat Primary Cortical Astrocytes on glass coverslips?

We recommend cleaning the coverslips and then coating them with 0.01% poly-D-lysine in double distilled water.

What is the doubling time of Gibco Rat Primary Cortical Astrocytes?

The doubling time of Gibco Rat Primary Cortical Astrocytes is about 8.7 days.

For how many passages can I expand Gibco Rat Primary Cortical Astrocytes?

Gibco Rat Primary Cortical Astrocytes can be thawed, recovered, and proliferated up to three passages to yield 1.5-2 fold increase of cells.

What is the % purity of Gibco Rat Primary Cortical Astrocytes?

Cell purity was evaluated in terms of expression of the astrocyte-specific marker, GFAP. More than 80% of the cells were positive for GFAP marker, and the expression of the neuronal marker (DCX) and oligodendrocyte marker (GalC) was less than 10%.

What is the viability of Gibco Rat Primary Cortical Astrocytes once thawed?

Upon thawing, the vial has more than 70% viability, which will give more than 1 million live cells.

Is there any difference between primary rat cortical astrocytes isolated from fetal, postnatal, and adult tissue?

Primary rat astrocytes are typically isolated from late fetal or early postnatal brain because the resulting astrocytes are more viable in culture and of higher purity than astrocytes from adult brain.

What is the difference, if any, between cortical and hippocampal astrocytes?

There are few known differences between cortical and hippocampal astrocytes. However, it has been reported that astrocytes from different regions of the brain show a differential sensitivity to ischemic injury.
- Zhao, Gang and Flavin, Michael, Differential sensitivity of rat hippocampal and cortical astrocytes to oxygen-glucose deprivation injury. Neuroscience Letters, 2000; 285: 177-180.
- Xu C. et al., Feeder-free growth of undifferentiated human embryonic stem cells. Nat Biotechnol, 2001; 19(10): 971-974.

At what passage were Gibco Rat Primary Cortical Astrocytes cryopreserved?

Gibco Rat Primary Cortical Astrocytes were cryopreserved in growth medium containing 10% DMSO at passage 1 (P1).