Monodelphis domestica: a new source of mammalian primary neurons in vitro

Mammalian central nervous system (CNS) in vitro cell models are mostly derived from the late embryonic or early postnatal mice and rats. Other mammalian species have been less used, meaning that inter-species diversity is not sufficiently investigated and that the additional comparative analyses are required to avoid misinterpretations in translating the knowledge to humans. We have recently established and extensively characterized the long-term primary dissociated cortical neuronal cultures derived from the neonatal grey South American short-tailed opossums [Monodelphis (M.) domestica] that we propose as a new source of mammalian CNS cells for in vitro developmental and regeneration studies. These cultures are unique for the possibility to obtain embryonic-like CNS cells from the postnatal animals, at wide range of postnatal days