Infectious Models in Mice for Study of Gut Inflammation: Primary Cultures of Myenteric Neurons

The human gut has 200-600 million neurons coordinated by an integrative system called the enteric nervous system (ENS). The ENS forms a vast network that controls all the complex activities of the gastrointestinal tract (GIT). In some intestinal alterations, this complex control is impaired by the loss or reduction of enteric neurons/glial cells due to inflammation, which affects neurotransmitter and motility activities and leads to the development of disease. Elucidating the mechanism of intestinal inflammation-induced dysfunction of GIT is one of the major gaps in inflammatory disease research. In this chapter, we present a detailed protocol that opens up the study of enteric neurons, glial cells, and smooth muscle cell activity in infectious models of murine intestinal inflammation. Primary myenteric culture mimics aspects of in vivo tissue and is an excellent platform for studying intestinal disease.