Minneapolis Veterans Affairs Health Care System
2 ARTICLES PUBLISHED IN JoVE
Neuroscience
Use of a Caspase Multiplexing Assay to Determine Apoptosis in a Hypothalamic Cell Model
Tammy A. Butterick 1,2, Cayla M. Duffy 1,2, Rachel E. Lee 3, Charles J. Billington 1,2,4, Catherine M. Kotz 1,2, Joshua P. Nixon 1,2
1Department of Veterans Affairs, Minneapolis Veterans Affairs Health Care System, 2Department of Food Science and Nutrition, University of Minnesota, 3Department of Integrative Biology and Physiology, University of Minnesota, 4Department of Medicine, University of Minnesota Medical School, University of Minnesota
Multiplex assays can provide beneficial information for basic cellular mechanisms and eliminate waste of reagents and unnecessary repetitive experiments. We describe here a multiplex caspase-3/7 activity assay, using fluorescent- and luminescent-based methods, to determine cell viability in an in vitro hypothalamic model following oxidative challenge with palmitic acid.
Neuroscience
Microglia as a Surrogate Biosensor to Determine Nanoparticle Neurotoxicity
Cayla M. Duffy 1,2, Shihab Ahmed 1, Ce Yuan 1,2,3, Vijayakumar Mavanji 1, Joshua P. Nixon 1,2, Tammy Butterick 1,2,4
1Minneapolis Veterans Affairs Health Care System, 2Department of Food Science and Nutrition, University of Minnesota, 3Biomedical Informatics and Computational Biology Program, University of Minnesota, 4Minnesota Obesity Center, University of Minnesota
Microglia (immune cells of the brain), are used as a surrogate biosensor to determine how nanoparticles influence neurotoxicity. We describe a series of experiments designed to assay microglial response to nanoparticles and exposure of hypothalamic neurons to supernatant from activated microglia to determine neurotoxicity.
