Mouse cell culture - Methods and protocols

Andrew Ward and David Tosh (Eds)

Series: Springer Protocols - Methods in Molecular Biology, Volume 633, 2010

Humana press, Totowa, NJ (USA)

Pages: 258; €98.75
ISBN: 978-1-58829-772-3

European Journal of Histochemistry 2010; 54

CarloAlberto Redi- University of Pavia - Email: carloalberto.redi@unipv.it

The mouse is, out of any doubt, the experimental animal par excellence for many many colleagues within the scientific community, notably for those working in mammalian biology (in a broad sense, from basic genetic to modeling human diseases), starting at least from 1664 Robert Hooke experiments on air’s propertyn. Not surprising then that mouse cell cultures is a well established field of research itself and that there are several handbooks devoted to this discipline. Here, Andrew Ward and David Tosh provide a necessary update of the protocols currently needed. In fact, nearly half of the book is devoted to stem cells culture protocols, mainly embryonic, from a list of several organs (kidney, lung, oesophagus and intestine, pancreas and liver to mention some). This fact reflects the present-day interest of the scientific community on several stem cells hot topics. The other half cover the most recent advancements in culturing all sort of somatic cells (satellite cells, myocytes, keratinocytes, mammary epithelial cells, pancreatic cells, hepatocytes, intestinal cells, choroid plexus epithelial cells, primary cortical neurons, primary cerebellar granule cells, generation of neurosphere from adult brain, as well as embryonic) from nearly all of the mouse organs. This long list of protocols (eighteen chapters) becomes the quintessential reference for the successful use of cell culture techniques that “can be traced back for over 100 years” and attributed to the great developmental biologist Wilhelm Roux. No sense to tell to the cats how to climb up: thanks to mouse cell cultures we advanced our knowledge in all the scientific disciplines, from the properties of tissues to tests for the pharmacologial action of new molecules; this is history of Biology and Medicine. Now-a-days we are facing new topics related to the isolation and culture of a wide range of cells of our loved animal (simply think to the disputes around the patenting issues) after the celebration of the centenary for the establishment of the first inbred mouse strain: 1909, DBA mouse strain by Clarence C. Little, the father of the other familiar C57 family strains.
Likely, in a short time we will need another edition of this valuable book.

CarloAlberto Redi
University of Pavia, Italy

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