Essential roles of plexin-B3+ oligodendrocyte precursor cells in the pathogenesis of Alzheimer’s disease

Purification and culture of aOPCs from the adult rat brain

Density gradients have often been used to purify microglia and hippocampal NSPCs from adult rodent brains (gradients spanning 1.030–1.065 g/ml in the case of microglia^16,17,18 and 1.065–1.074 g/ml in the case of NSPCs)^17,18,19, as they allow less buoyant cells to be separated)¹⁹. In these purification procedures, the higher buoyancy (<1.04 g/ml) cell fractions are discarded, because they are regarded as consisting merely of accumulated debris, mainly myelin^16,17,19.

However, our previous studies²⁴ indicated that many unidentified cell types were present in these more buoyant fractions (<1.04 g/ml), especially those in the density gradient spanning 1.029–1.041 (Fig. 1a).

a Culture strategy. NSPCs: neural stem or precursor cells. b Left: Phase contrast images of primary…