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

Organotypic 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.

Building 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.

We 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.

Our 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.

Our 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.