james at teoth.fsnet.co.uk (James Teo) wrote in message news:<285320c2.0201211040.7c0087ec at posting.google.com>...
> > I am studying mGluRs in the neocortex at the moment. Out of interest,
> > how did you isolate the glial cell functions? Did you culture glia or
> > somehow differentiate the effects of the (ant)agonists on neurones and
> > glia?
>> I cultured them and confirmed they were glia with immunostaining for
> GFAP. It isn't a perfect model I know, but as you know it is
> impossible to differentiate between neuron and glia pathways in a
> mixed culture.
>> >I'm just asking since if it was a simple technique I might be
> >able to employ it! :) Did you publish your results?
>> I only got an abstract from it (Proceedings of the British
> Pharmacological Society; Aug 1999; Teo, Meller & Sharp). If you want,
> I will dig up my abstract or even my dissertation from my old hard
> disk and send it on to you.
>> The technique I used was HPLC for glutamate, aspartate and other amino
> acids after incubating them in various pharmacological agents. Other
> studies have concentrated imaging them with calcium-chelating dyes,
> but I found that technically difficult. (Hey, medics are crap
> scientists, don't you know?). My lab supervisor has also reproduced
> the results with the 5HT1A receptor, but this is again unpublished
> results (abstracts only).
>> > ps, is that the correct name of the author you cited, can't seem to
> > find any references on medline?
>> Okay, I can't remember his exact name as I don't have my old reference
> at hand, but if you want I will dig it up together with the abstract.
> I have dug up some references:
>> 1) Tripartite synapses: glia, the unacknowledged partner.
> Araque A, Parpura V, Sanzgiri RP, Haydon PG.
> Trends Neurosci 1999 May;22(5):208-15
>> 2) Glia: listening and talking to the synapse.
> Haydon PG.
> Nature Rev Neurosci 2001 Mar;2(3):185-93
>> 3) Calcium elevation in astrocytes causes an NMDA receptor-dependent
> increase in the frequency of miniature synaptic currents in cultured
> hippocampal neurons.
> Araque A, Sanzgiri RP, Parpura V, Haydon PG.
> Journal of Neuroscience 1998 Sep 1;18(17):6822-9
>> 4) Glutamate-dependent astrocyte modulation of synaptic transmission
> between cultured hippocampal neurons.
> Araque A, Parpura V, Sanzgiri RP, Haydon PG
> European Journal of Neuroscience 1998 Jun;10(6):2129-42
>> The first two are good reviews, the last two are important references
> I used when I was actually doing the project (1998-1999)
>> BTW, if you are going to study those glutamate receptors, let me know
> what you dig up as I couldn't pursue my project to my maximum
> satisfaction as in 1999, there weren't any mGluR5-specific stuff, so
> my results was a matter of elimination ("it wasn't mGluR1, mGluR2-4,
> kainate, NMDA receptors, so it can only be mGluR5") rather than any
> positive proof.
Cheers that would be v. useful! Should be going back into the lab
again next week and I'll get the data I already have together. If
anything interesting pops up I will post it.
