A method for long term culture of murine type 2 astrocytes

Producing cultures of mouse type 2 astrocytes is difficult as these cells have low proliferative ability when isolated as pure cultures. Often standard glial culture techniques yield mixed glial cultures from mouse which contain little or no type 2 glia. This has made studies of the nature and activity of type 2 astrocytes difficult. A co-culture technique has been established to allow long term culturing of type 2 astrocytes which can be grown in large number and isolated at very high purity. This technique uses co-culture of isolated type 2 astrocytes and their progenitor cells with microglia. Using this method, type 2 astrocytes can be grown to high density cultures and maintained in culture for over a year without noticeable change in basic phenotypic characteristics. Aged type 2 astrocytes show increased activity of anti-oxidant enzymes suggesting that these cells have increased resistance to oxidative stress. This method may allow analysis of the development of type 2 astrocytes from progenitor cells and may help to identify the in vivo equivalent of these cells.