June 6, 2017 -- Neurons are preeminently important to the central nervous system, of course, but the star-shaped support cells called
astrocytes are gaining greater prominence.
35) In the Setdb1 mutant mouse brain, neurogenesis was impaired and precocious
astrocyte induction was observed.
About 8 percent of the synapses showed
astrocyte activity in mice that had lost 8 hours of sleep, compared to 6 percent in those that had enjoyed an undisturbed sleep.
Nevertheless, it should be noted that in line with its structural role, GFAP is not present throughout the
astrocyte cytoplasm.
Imaging studies demonstrated a sharp elevation in
astrocyte activation --a response to neuronal insult--before amyloid-beta began to accumulate in the brain, and then steadily declined.
The findings of the researchers, who monitored several pathological changes in the brain, suggest that activation of
astrocytes at an early stage can greatly influence the development of the disease.
Astrocytes extend many fine branching processes, putting them in direct contact with cell bodies, dendrites, and synaptic terminals, such that an individual
astrocyte may contact up to 100,000 neurons [17].
2 million Synapses that can be influenced by one human
astrocyteAstrocyte, a subtype of glial cell, is known to protect neuronal cells against oxidative stress through transcriptional upregulation of glutathione synthesis and removal of extracellular glutamate [37-39].
Primary
astrocyte and SH-SY5Y cells were grown to confluence on polycarbonate 48-well plates.
From the
astrocytes, their toxicity (one of the causes of neurodegeneration in ALS) is verified by plating iNPCs onto the
astrocyte co-culture.
The results of immunofluorescence showed that the neuronal and
astrocyte cultures were enriched, containing more than 90% neurons (figure 1a) and
astrocytes (figure 1b), respectively.
