Ablation of p27 enhance kainate-induced seizure and hippocampal degeneration.

p27 is a cyclin-dependent kinase inhibitor which arrests cell cycle at G1-S phase. Using RNA interference method, we previously showed that reduction of endogenous p27 expression induces cell death through cell cycle progression in cultured cortical neurons. In this study, we investigated responses to kainate treatment using p27 knockout mice.

A low-cost method for brain slice cultures.

Low-cost, simple procedures for organotypic tissue cultures are desirable for high-throughput biological experiments such as large-scale medical/drug screening. We present a practical and economical method to cultivate brain slices using hydrophilic filtration membranes. With a cost reduction of more than 90%, this technique allows us to prepare hippocampal slice cultures that are morphologically and functionally indistinguishable from those obtained by the widely used Millicell-CM method.