Hertie Institute for Clinical Brain Research

2 ARTICLES PUBLISHED IN JoVE

The Use of Primary Human Fibroblasts for Monitoring Mitochondrial Phenotypes in the Field of Parkinson's Disease

¹DZNE, German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases, ²Department of Neurodegenerative Diseases, Laboratory of Functional Neurogenomics, Hertie Institute for Clinical Brain Research

Fibroblasts from patients carrying mutations in Parkinson's disease-causing genes represent an easily accessible ex vivo model to study disease-associated phenotypes. Live cell imaging gives the opportunity to study morphological and functional parameters in living cells. Here we describe the preparation of human fibroblasts and subsequent monitoring of mitochondrial phenotypes .

Immunology and Infection

Isolation of Myeloid Dendritic Cells and Epithelial Cells from Human Thymus

Christina Stoeckle^1,2, Ioanna A. Rota¹, Eva Tolosa³, Christoph Haller⁴, Arthur Melms⁵, Eleni Adamopoulou¹

¹Department of General Neurology, Hertie Institute for Clinical Brain Research, ²Institute of Pharmacology, University of Bern, ³Department of Immunology, University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf, ⁴Department of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery, University Clinic Tuebingen, ⁵Department of Neurology, University Hospital Erlangen

This protocol details a method to isolate antigen presenting cells from human thymus via different steps of enzymatic digestion of the tissue followed by density centrifugation of the single cell suspension and finally magnetic and/or FACS sorting of the cell populations of interest.