Preparation of Astrocyte, Oligodendrocyte, and Microglia Cultures from Primary Rat Cerebral Cultures

The study of glial cell development and function has been considerably enhanced by the development of methods to culture oligodendrocytes and astrocytes from central nervous system tissue. A primary mixed glial culture, composed mostly of astrocytes, oligodendrocytes, and microglia, is obtained when newborn disaggregated cerebral brain cells from rat are plated at high cell density (2 � 105 /cm2 ) in serum-supplemented medium (McCarthy and de Vellis, 1980 ).