by Keyword: Neurotoxicity
Palma-Florez, S, Lagunas, A, Mir, M, (2024). Neurovascular unit on a chip: the relevance and maturity as an advanced in vitro model Neural Regeneration Research 19, 1165-1166 
[No abstract available]
JTD Keywords: Alpha synuclein, Animal cell, Article, Astrocyte, Brain blood flow, Capillary endothelial cell, Cardiovascular system, Cell interaction, Coculture, Degenerative disease, Differential expression analysis, Endothelium cell, Entactin, Extracellular matrix, Fibronectin, Gene expression, Human, Human cell, Huntington chorea, Hydroxyapatite, In vitro study, Induced pluripotent stem cell, Laminin, Macrophage, Maturity, Microglia, Nervous system, Nervous system inflammation, Neuroprotection, Neurotoxicity, Nonhuman, Parkinson disease, Pericyte, Perivascular space, Personalized medicine, Shear stress, Smooth muscle cell, Three dimensional printing
Martinez, A, Hériché, JK, Calvo, M, Tischer, C, Otxoa-de-Amezaga, A, Pedragosa, J, Bosch, A, Planas, AM, Petegnief, V, (2023). Characterization of microglia behaviour in healthy and pathological conditions with image analysis tools Open Biology 13, 220200
Microglia are very sensitive to changes in the environment and respond through morphological, functional and metabolic adaptations. To depict the modifications microglia undergo under healthy and pathological conditions, we developed free access image analysis scripts to quantify microglia morphologies and phagocytosis. Neuron-glia cultures, in which microglia express the reporter tdTomato, were exposed to excitotoxicity or excitotoxicity + inflammation and analysed 8 h later. Neuronal death was assessed by SYTOX staining of nucleus debris and phagocytosis was measured through the engulfment of SYTOX+ particles in microglia. We identified seven morphologies: round, hypertrophic, fried egg, bipolar and three 'inflamed' morphologies. We generated a classifier able to separate them and assign one of the seven classes to each microglia in sample images. In control cultures, round and hypertrophic morphologies were predominant. Excitotoxicity had a limited effect on the composition of the populations. By contrast, excitotoxicity + inflammation promoted an enrichment in inflamed morphologies and increased the percentage of phagocytosing microglia. Our data suggest that inflammation is critical to promote phenotypical changes in microglia. We also validated our tools for the segmentation of microglia in brain slices and performed morphometry with the obtained mask. Our method is versatile and useful to correlate microglia sub-populations and behaviour with environmental changes.
JTD Keywords: classification, identification, image analysis, injury, morphometry, neuroinflammation, neurotoxicity, phagocytosis, Classification, Image analysis, Microglia, Morphometry, Neuroinflammation, Nitric-oxide, Phagocytosis
Vilches, S., Vergara, C., Nicolás, O., Mata, A., Del Río, J. A., Gavín, R., (2016). Domain-specific activation of death-associated intracellular signalling cascades by the cellular prion protein in neuroblastoma cells Molecular Neurobiology 53, (7), 4438–4448
The biological functions of the cellular prion protein remain poorly understood. In fact, numerous studies have aimed to determine specific functions for the different protein domains. Studies of cellular prion protein (PrPC) domains through in vivo expression of molecules carrying internal deletions in a mouse Prnp null background have provided helpful data on the implication of the protein in signalling cascades in affected neurons. Nevertheless, understanding of the mechanisms underlying the neurotoxicity induced by these PrPC deleted forms is far from complete. To better define the neurotoxic or neuroprotective potential of PrPC N-terminal domains, and to overcome the heterogeneity of results due to the lack of a standardized model, we used neuroblastoma cells to analyse the effects of overexpressing PrPC deleted forms. Results indicate that PrPC N-terminal deleted forms were properly processed through the secretory pathway. However, PrPΔF35 and PrPΔCD mutants led to death by different mechanisms sharing loss of alpha-cleavage and activation of caspase-3. Our data suggest that both gain-of-function and loss-of-function pathogenic mechanisms may be associated with N-terminal domains and may therefore contribute to neurotoxicity in prion disease. Dissecting the molecular response induced by PrPΔF35 may be the key to unravelling the physiological and pathological functions of the prion protein.
JTD Keywords: Cellular prion protein, Neurotoxicity, Truncated prion protein
