Preparing and Maintaining Mixed Glia Culture Derived from Neonatal Mice Brains

To begin, mince the isolated brains into approximately one-square-millimeter pieces with a sterile disposable scalpel blade. Carefully transfer the minced brains into a new sterile 50 milliliter tube. Add a final concentration of 0.25%trypsin to the minced brains.

Incubate the tissue in a 37-degrees-Celsius water bath for 20 minutes. Add five milliliters of complete glia culture media to neutralize the trypsin and gently mix the tissue suspension using a 10 milliliter pipette. Carefully decant the cell suspension through the cell strainer.

Then remove the plunger from a sterile one-milliliter syringe and grind the tissue into the mesh using the plunger. Add equal volumes of cell suspension containing one to two brains with glia culture media to each flask resulting in a final volume of 15 milliliters. Sparse cells and excessive cellular debris were observed on day one.

By day four, adherent astrocytes were generated. Confluent cells with typical astrocyte morphology were observed by day eight of culture.