Activation of myenteric glia during acute inflammation in vitro

Enteric glial cells (EGCs) are the main constituent of the enteric nervous system and share similarities with astrocytes from the central nervous system including their reactivity to an inflammator microenvironment. In this study we isolated GFAP-positive myenteric glia from FVB/hGFAP-eGFP transgenic postnatal day 7 mice. Following cell sorting for the eGFP reporter, GFAP-positive EGCs were cultured for 3 weeks to generate neurosphere-like bodies. This cell culture was stimulated with LPS for 48 h and cells were employed for gene expression profiling. LPS-stimulated cell cultures were compared to untreated control cell cultures. Enriched GFAP+ EGC cultures secreted increased levels of prominent inflammatory cytokines upon LPS stimulation. Further, in vitro cultures were compared to GFAP-eGFP-positive cells directly analyzed after cell sorting of small intestinal LMMP digests (in vivo) to assess alterations in transcriptomic profiles due to the in vitro culture.

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Rosenbaum C, Schick MA, Wollborn J, Heider A, Scholz CJ, Cecil A, Niesler B, Hirrlinger J, Walles H, Metzger M