[Histonet] marker for brain inflammation

[Geoff McAuliffe]

Hi Caroline:

    Hmmm. Sticking a needle into the brain will cause some disruption, 
bleeding and a normal response to the injury, ie. inflamation. Native 
microglia will be activated and macrophages and other WBC will enter the 
wound site via ruptured blood vessels. Both native microglia and 
arriving macrophages will be positive for F4/80. There will also be an 
astrocyte reaction, almost certainly visible with GFAP. I suggest a 
second injection into the same region on the opposite side of the 
brain.  Use the vehicle without the virus as a control to see how much 
inflamation you get on one side versus the other. You do need a control 
and this seems like a logical one to me. A lot has been written on 
injecting various tracers into the brain and I suspect someone has dealt 
with this issue, but in the 1970's. Get a copy of "Neuroanatomical tract 
tracing methods" by Heimer and Robards out of the library or try J. 
Neurosci. Methods 103:1, 2000 and see what has been done.

Geoff

Caroline Bass wrote:

> Hello,
>
> I'm wondering if someone could suggest a marker or stain that could  
> help visualize inflammation.  I am working on a project where I  
> inject a virus in the brain to introduce genes in neurons.  However,  
> I want to make sure that the injection itself, or the neuronal  
> infection is not causing a large degree of inflammation.  Could  
> someone suggest a good way to visualize this?  I imagine some sort of  
> immune marker will do, perhaps mF4/80?
>
> thanks,
>
> Caroline
>
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Geoff McAuliffe, Ph.D.
Neuroscience and Cell Biology
Robert Wood Johnson Medical School
675 Hoes Lane, Piscataway, NJ 08854
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mcauliff <@t> umdnj.edu
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