Raos B J, Graham E S, Unsworth C P
Department of Engineering Science, The University of Auckland, Private Bag 92019, Auckland 1142, New Zealand.
J Neural Eng. 2017 Jun;14(3):035001. doi: 10.1088/1741-2552/aa5f27. Epub 2017 Mar 14.
Astrocytes respond to various stimuli resulting in intracellular Ca signals that can propagate through organized functional networks. Recent literature calls for the development of techniques that can stimulate astrocytes in a fast and highly localized manner to emulate more closely the characteristics of astrocytic Ca signals in vivo.
In this article we demonstrate, for the first time, how nanosecond UV lasers are capable of reproducibly stimulating Ca transients in human hNT astrocytes.
We report that laser pulses with a beam energy of 4-29 µJ generate transient increases in cytosolic Ca. These Ca transients then propagate to adjacent astrocytes as intercellular Ca waves.
We propose that nanosecond laser stimulation provides a valuable tool for enabling the study of Ca dynamics in human astrocytes at both a single cell and network level. Compared to previously developed techniques nanosecond laser stimulation has the advantage of not requiring loading of photo-caged or -sensitising agents, is non-contact, enables stimulation with a high spatiotemporal resolution and is comparatively cost effective.
星形胶质细胞对各种刺激作出反应，产生可通过有组织的功能网络传播的细胞内钙信号。最近的文献呼吁开发能够以快速且高度局部化的方式刺激星形胶质细胞的技术，以更紧密地模拟体内星形胶质细胞钙信号的特征。
在本文中，我们首次展示了纳秒紫外激光如何能够可重复地刺激人hNT星形胶质细胞中的钙瞬变。
我们报告，光束能量为4 - 29 μJ的激光脉冲会使细胞质钙产生瞬时增加。这些钙瞬变随后作为细胞间钙波传播到相邻的星形胶质细胞。
我们提出，纳秒激光刺激为在单细胞和网络水平上研究人星形胶质细胞中的钙动力学提供了一种有价值的工具。与先前开发的技术相比，纳秒激光刺激具有不需要加载光笼蔽或光敏感剂、非接触、能够以高时空分辨率进行刺激且成本相对较低的优点。
