This technology is a method of deriving human microglia-like cells from genotyped patients and co-culturing them with rat primary neurons in the presence of human fluids for use in disease modelling and high-throughput drug screening.
Therapeutic development for neurodegenerative disorders is limited by representative disease modeling and drug screening systems. Animal models are hindered by severe differences in the nervous systems of animals and humans, and current cell-based systems are limited in their scope. Particularly, current cell-based culture models do not include microglia, yet neurodegenerative disorders have been strongly linked with microglia dysfunction.
This technology derives human microglia-like cells from a genotyped patient’s monocytes. The microglia-like cells are co-cultured with rat primary neurons in the presence of human fluids collected from neurodegenerative disease patients as well as healthy controls. These cultures can be easily analyzed up to three weeks after seeding for microglia phagocytic activity and cell viability. Additionally, RNA sequencing can analyze further functionality. As such, this technology provides an attractive in vitro system to model neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s and a potential high-throughput drug screening system.
This technology uses human monocyte-derived microglia-like cells that have been validated to recapitulate many aspects of microglia phenotype and function.
IR CU19086
Licensing Contact: Joan Martínez