Transferable neuronal mini-cultures to accelerate screening in primary and induced pluripotent stem cell-derived neurons.
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ABSTRACT: The effort and cost of obtaining neurons for large-scale screens has limited drug discovery in neuroscience. To overcome these obstacles, we fabricated arrays of releasable polystyrene micro-rafts to generate thousands of uniform, mobile neuron mini-cultures. These mini-cultures sustain synaptically-active neurons which can be easily transferred, thus increasing screening throughput by >30-fold. Compared to conventional methods, micro-raft cultures exhibited significantly improved neuronal viability and sample-to-sample consistency. We validated the screening utility of these mini-cultures for both mouse neurons and human induced pluripotent stem cell-derived neurons by successfully detecting disease-related defects in synaptic transmission and identifying candidate small molecule therapeutics. This affordable high-throughput approach has the potential to transform drug discovery in neuroscience.
SUBMITTER: Niedringhaus M
PROVIDER: S-EPMC4322355 | biostudies-other | 2015 Feb
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-other
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