Combining multicolor fluorescent in situ hybridization (FISH) and immunofluorescent staining (IFS) presents a powerful method for visualizing the spatial relationship between mRNA and proteins in different neural compartments. Although seemingly straightforward, t ...
Fragile X syndrome results from the lack of FMR1 expression. To understand how the lack of FMR1 function leads to the syndrome, we are studying the Drosophila FMR1 related protein (dFMR1). We performed affinity purification of dFMR1-associated complexes from cultured Drosophila S2 cells ...
This chapter describes the potential use of viral-mediated gene transfer in the central nervous system for the silencing of gene expression using RNA interference in the context of Huntington’s disease (HD). Protocols provided here describe the design of small interfering RNAs, their e ...
Mesenchymal stem cells/marrow stromal cells (MSCs) are ideally suited for cellular therapy due to their ease of isolation, manipulation, and strong safety profile in the clinic. They can be expanded from normal qualified human donors in large quantities and can be infused without tissue ma ...
Huntington’s disease (HD) is a devastating disease that currently has no cure. Transgenic HD monkeys have developed key neuropathological and cognitive behavioral impairments similar to HD patients. Thus, pluripotent stem cells derived from transgenic HD monkeys could be a useful c ...
The mammalian motor cortex is capable of circuit reorganization driven by acquisition of novel motor skills. Time-lapse imaging of synaptic structures in the living brain provides valuable information on how motor learning rewires synaptic connections and how long-lasting memo ...
Transcranial two-photon microscopy allows long-term imaging of neurons, glia, and vasculature in the intact cortex of living animals. So far, this technique has been primarily used to acquire images in anesthetized animals. Here, we describe a detailed protocol for high-resolution two ...
Huntington’s disease (HD) is an inherited neurodegenerative disease that is characterized by movement abnormalities, cognitive impairment, and abnormal behavior as well as sleep and weight problems. It is an autosomal dominant disorder caused by a mutation in the huntingtin gene on t ...
Instability of repetitive DNA sequences within the genome is associated with a number of human diseases. The expansion of trinucleotide repeats is recognized as a major cause of neurological and neuromuscular diseases, and progress in understanding the mutations over the last 20 years h ...
Investigation of cardiac progenitor cell proliferation and differentiation is essential for both the basic understanding of progenitor cell biology as well as the development of cellular therapeutics for tissue regeneration. Herein, we describe techniques used for the analys ...
The ability to identify the donor stem cells following transplantation into injured hearts is critical. This is particularly important in evaluating stem cell survival and lineage differentiation into mature cardiovascular cells. Several approaches have been employed for tra ...
Human-induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs) have received enormous attention because of their ability to differentiate into multiple cell types that demonstrate the patient’s original phenotype. The use of hiPSCs is particularly valuable to the study of cardiac biology, as human ...
Cardiac progenitor cells (CPC) are a unique pool of progenitor cells residing in the heart that play an important role in cardiac homeostasis and physiological cardiovascular cell turnover during acute myocardial infarction (MI). Transplanting CPC into the heart has shown promise in t ...
Since the resident cardiac stem/progenitor cells were discovered, their ability to maintain the architecture and functional integrity of adult heart has been broadly explored. The methods for isolation and purification of the cardiac stem cells are crucial for the precise analysis of ...
Over the last decade, cell therapy has emerged as a potentially new approach for the treatment of cardiovascular diseases. Among the wide range of cell types and sources, adipose-derived mesenchymal stem cells have shown promise, mainly due to its plasticity and remarkable paracrine-sec ...
The “mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs)” are cells adherent in the bone marrow, which can be isolated to induce differentiation. In contrast to the “embryonic stem cells” whose goal is to develop a new organism, the “MSC adult stem cells” can participate in tissue growth and repair throughout postnatal ...
Skeletal muscle satellite cells (myoblasts) are the primary stem cells of skeletal muscle which contribute to growth, maintenance, and repair of the muscles. Satellite cells are the first stem cells used for cellular cardiomyoplasty more than 20 years ago. The isolation, culture, labeli ...
Cellular cardiomyoplasty is a cell therapy using stem cells or progenitor cells for myocardial regeneration to improve cardiac function and mitigate heart failure. Since we first published cellular cardiomyoplasty in 1989, this procedure became the innovative method to treat dam ...
Adipose tissue represents an abundant, accessible source of regenerative cells that can be easily obtained in sufficient amount for therapy. Adipose-derived regenerative cells (ADRC) are comprised of leukocytes, smooth muscles, endothelial cells, and mesenchymal stem cells. In ...
The past decade has witnessed a marked increase in the number of clinical trials of cardiac repair with adult bone marrow cells (BMCs). These trials included patients with acute myocardial infarction (MI) as well as chronic ischemic heart disease (IHD) and utilized different types of BMCs with v ...

