Discussion
Our ex vivo organotypic spinal cord slice culture system provides a platform to model demyelination and endogenous remyelination long-term, mimicking that observed in LPC-induced rodent models of demyelination. This platform is suitable for the development and testing of novel therapeutic strategies with ease of manipulation prior to in vivo experimentation.
Methods
Building on our previously developed rat brain slice culture protocol, we have extended our findings to develop a rat longitudinal spinal cord ex vivo model of demyelination.
Results
We generated rat longitudinal spinal cord slice cultures that remain viable for up to 6 weeks in culture and retain key anatomical features of the spinal cord's cytoarchitecture. We show that treating longitudinal spinal cord slices with lysolecithin (LPC) induced robust demyelination with some endogenous remyelination, which was not seen following exposure to lipopolysaccharide (LPS).