Extract the most out of precious neuroscience samples
Neurodegeneration, neuroinflammation, infectious disease, and neurotrauma can have devastating effects on the Central Nervous System (CNS) that impact cognitive function, behavior, mental health, and more. Understanding the role of CNS cells such as neurons, astrocytes, glia, and oligodendrocytes as well as the pathways involved in disorders such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, Frontotemporal Dementia (FTD), Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), and Multiple Sclerosis (MS) is crucial to disease prevention, detection, and treatment.
Challenges
We know it’s difficult to acquire diseased and normal CNS tissue for research. When samples are available, extracting the most biological information from every experiment with a multi-omic platform that is easy to use is important. Traditional, low-plex methods of profiling RNA and protein such as PCR, western blotting, immunohistochemistry, or immunofluorescence staining provide limited information on CNS structure and functionality. RNA Sequencing, while more comprehensive for expression analysis, does not directly quantify transcripts, requires time-consuming, tedious steps and onerous data analysis and sacrifices the spatial arrangement of mRNAs within tissue.
NanoString offers two robust and widely-cited platforms for multiplexed proteomics and transcriptomics of challenging neuroscience sample types such as FFPE, cell lysates, and cerebrospinal fluid. The nCounter® Analysis System and GeoMx® Digital Spatial Profiler (DSP) can be used in tandem with minimal hands-on time for bulk and spatial profiling of RNA or protein to generate accurate, repeatable, and insightful results in less than 24 hours that get you to your next neuroscience publication faster.
Featured Solutions
Select from curated, multiplexed nCounter Gene Expression Panels and/or GeoMx DSP Protein assays and the Whole Transcriptome Atlas to build your own experiment. Take advantage of embedded CNS and immune cell typing signatures to quantify the relative abundance of 5 CNS cell types and 14 different immune cell types.
Related Resources
Publications
Targeted Transcriptomic Analysis of C57BL/6 and BALB/c Mice During Progressive Chronic Toxoplasma gondii Infection Reveals Changes in Host and Parasite Gene Expression Relating to Neuropathology and Resolution.
Toxoplasma gondii is a resilient parasite that infects a multitude of warm-blooded hosts and results in a lifelong chronic infection requiring continuous responses by the host. Chronic infection is characterized by a balanced immune response and neuropathology that are driven by changes in gene expression.
A research parasite’s perspective on establishing a baseline to avoid errors in secondary analyses.
To enhance reproducibility in scientific research, more and more datasets are becoming publicly available so that researchers can perform secondary analyses to investigate questions the original scientists had not posited. This increases the return on investment for the NIH and other funding bodies.
Reduced erythrocytic CHCHD2 mRNA is associated with brain pathology of Parkinson’s disease.
Peripheral biomarkers indicative of brain pathology are critically needed for early detection of Parkinson’s disease (PD). In this study, using NanoString and digital PCR technologies, we began by screening for alterations in genes associated with PD or atypical Parkinsonism in erythrocytes of PD patients, in which PD-related changes have been reported, and which contain ~ 99% of blood α-synuclein.
