Spot Cells LLC provides services that includes dissection and cryopreservation of brain tissue to generate primary neuronal and/or glial cell cultures from mice and rats. The firm also develops tools to grow and study miniaturized cell cultures - tools designed for microscopic observations that require differential interference contrast (DIC) and cellular fluorescence imaging. Miniaturization of the tools reduces the costs of research. The firm's services can be used to generate cryopreserved preparations of brain cells derived from transgenic animals. Using customers' animals, Spot Cells LLC can generate cryopreserved preparations to be stored in liquid nitrogen. Each preparation can be thawed on a desired day and used to prepare at least 25 miniaturized cell cultures. For example, from one pregnant mouse (7 fetuses), a customer can get at least 20 cryopreserved preparations of cortical neurons. For control experiments, Spot Cells LLC would make analogous preparations from wild-type animals. The shelf life of these preparations (in liquid nitrogen) is unlimited. Cryopreserved preparations from various brain parts (cortex, hippocampus, striatum, ventral mesencephalon, etc.) are also available.
