The Organotypic Longitudinal Spinal Cord Slice Culture for Stem Cell Study

Figure 6

Local tissue (spinal cord versus hippocampus) significantly influences cell commitment, differentiation, and maturation, as observed during 7-day-long coculture experiments. The vicinity of hippocampal slices (right panel) promotes neuronal commitment and maturation (TUJ1) (D) and accelerates oligodendroglial differentiation into cells characterized by complex, multibranched morphology (GalC) (H). Conversely, in medium conditioned by the spinal cords slices (left panel), the progenitor and immature forms of oligodendrocytes are most abundant (NG2, O4) ((A), (E)), while GalC-positive cells begin to send out cell processes (G). Cell nuclei (blue) were stained with Hoechst 33258. Scale bar = 50 μm.