Columbia University

This is a protocol describing how to isolate and culture primary sympathetic neurons from superior cervical ganglia (SCG) of newborn rat pups.

Here we present a method to isolate and culture cerebellar granule neuron progenitor cells and cerebellar granule neurons from postnatal mouse.

The dissection technique illustrates evisceration of the vitreous, retina, and lens from the mouse eye, separation by centrifugation, and characterization with protein assays.

This article demonstrates two very different methods of injection: 1) into the brain (intracerebroventricular) and 2) systemic (intravenous) to introduce the therapeutic agents into the central nervous system of neonatal mice.

The dissection technique illustrates enucleation of the mouse eye for tissue fixation to perform phenotyping in high-throughput screens.

Recombinant adeno-associated virus (rAAVs) vectors are becoming increasingly valuable for in vivo studies in animals. We describe how rAAVs can be produced in the laboratory and how these vectors can be titered to give an accurate reading of the number of infectious particles produced.

In order to reduce cervical cancer incidence we need to increase the sensitivity of methods used for screening. Testing for "high-risk" types of HPV greatly improves sensitivity compared to cervical cytology, but is generally thought to reduce specificity. Incorporating genotyping for HPV 16 and 18 together with "high-risk" HPV testing reduces the impact of lower specificity.

This surgical technique illustrates the injection of gene therapy vectors and stem cells into the subretinal space of the mouse eye.

The 3DNA software package is a popular and versatile bioinformatics tool with capabilities to analyze, construct, and visualize three-dimensional nucleic acid structures. This article presents detailed protocols for a subset of new and popular features available in 3DNA, applicable to both individual structures and ensembles of related structures.

Viral vectors allow for targeted gene manipulation. We demonstrate a method for conditional gene expression or ablation in the mouse spinal cord, using stereotaxic injection of a viral vector into the dorsal horn, a prominent site of synaptic contact between primary somatosensory afferents and neurons of the central nervous system.

Subretinal injection has been widely applied in preclinical studies of stem cell replacement therapy for age-related macular degeneration. In this visualized article, we describe a less risky, reproducible and precisely modified subretinal injection technique via the trans-scleral approach to deliver cells into rat eyes.

The human retina is composed of functionally and molecularly distinct regions, including the fovea, macula, and peripheral retina. Here, we describe a method using punch biopsies and manual removal of tissue layers from a human eye to dissect and collect these distinct retinal regions for downstream proteomic analysis.