Cell Biology Facility
The Cell Biology Facility located at IINS within the Broca Building, offers a range of cell culture models and molecular tools for the entire scientific community, being either academic, private, local, or national/international.
The facility is headed by Natacha Retailleau who covers operational and financial aspects, and Olivier Thoumine, who is responsible for the scientific interactions. Adrien Caralp and Léa Leroy are hired to perform the technical tasks and quality control.
The cell biology facility was created in 2010, by engineers from the teams of Daniel Choquet, Laurent Groc and Olivier Thoumine. They were facing the increasing need of primary cell cultures and decided to mutualize their efforts to win time and money. Year after year, the facility has been able to expand its fields of expertise proposing the following cellular models:
- Primary cultures of hippocampal or cortical neurons from wild-type or transgenic rodents
- Cultures of organotypic brain slices from rat or mouse models
- Heterologous cell cultures and pluripotent stem cells
- Insertion of DNA into these cell types (by transfection, electroporation, or viral infection)
- Cell storage in liquid nitrogen and management of cell banks
On top of cell cultures, we are also offering the production of protein probes and their functionalization to a variety of organic fluorophores for multi-modal microscopy, leveraging on the expertise of Matthieu Sainlos . The facility hired an engineer to produce the tools developed for imaging purposes to benefit the whole institute as well as outside.
More recently, the facility has integrated an activity of microparticle fluorescence sorting proposed by Etienne Herzog.
The advantage of having developed an extensive repertoire of cellular and molecular models is that we can offer services tailored to each experiment. Our staff can provide basic tools, as well as develop customized experiments, to help researchers answer their biological questions.
We are equipped with 4 L1/L2 culture modules covering 300 m², with over 50 incubators and 40 laminar flow hoods, as well as more specific equipment such as the Octet-R8 (a device for measuring protein-protein interactions) and a fluorescence-activated microparticle sorter.
We have on hand staff with expertise in these technologies not only for production, but also for training users in cell culture, and for monitoring technological developments with a view to setting up new models or protocols.
We are proposing our services to the Bordeaux Neurocampus community, for example the Bordeaux Imaging Center, the Bordeaux School of Neuroscience. And we provide tools or help to public labs like CENBG studying chemistry and onco-immunology research.
If you use the facility and you want to thank us in your papers, please use that sentence:
We thank all the staff from the IINS Cell Biology Facility for cell culture and molecular tools used in this study, and funding provided by the GPR BRAIN_2030.
Techniques
- Dissection
- Dissociation
- Cell culture
- Electroporation
- Transfection
- Cell freezing
- Slice preparation
- Protein production & conjugation
- Fluorescence-Activated Microparticle sorting
Key Words
Rat ; Mouse ; Hippocampus ; Cortex ; Organotypic slices ; Primary neurons ; Glial cells ; Cell lines ; Human induced Pluripotent Stem Cells ; Tissue culture plastic and media ; Supplements ; Liquid nitrogen.