Philipps-Universität Marburg

This protocol describes the dissection and cultivation of intact testes and germ-line cysts from Drosophila melanogaster pupae. This method allows microscopic observation of spermatogenesis ex vivo. Furthermore, we describe a pharmacological assay of the effect of inhibitors on specific stages of germ-cell development in pupal testes.

Primary Sertoli cells are required for studying testis-immune privilege, signal transduction during inflammation or infection, and utilization of their immunoprotective properties. Here we describe an enzyme-based protocol for the isolation of highly purified primary Sertoli cells and peritubular cells from rat testes.

A wireless, bidirectional system for multi-channel neural recordings and stimulation in freely behaving rats is introduced. The system is light and compact, thus having minimal impact on the animal´s behavioral repertoire. Moreover, this bidirectional system provides a sophisticated tool to assess causal relationships between brain activation patterns and behavior.

Crystallographic fragment screening at the Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin is performed using a workflow with dedicated compound libraries, crystal handling tools, fast data collection facilities and largely automated data analysis. The presented protocol intends to maximize the output of such experiments to provide promising starting points for downstream structure-based ligand design.