Growing and working with spinal motor neurons.

The chick embryo has a long tradition as a model organism in developmental biology as well as embryology. A year-round supply of fertilized eggs, accessibility to all stages of development, and the ease of manipulation of the embryo all contribute to the advantages of investigations using chick embryos. A plethora of culture systems have been developed over the past century allowing to culture intact embryos from as early as 2 days of development. Other culture systems include whole embryo slices, organotypic cultures, tissue explants, and dissociated cultures. Studies utilizing the chick embryo, and in particular spinal motor neurons, were crucial for our present knowledge of the development but also adult physiology, injury, and disease of the nervous system. Extensive studies on spinal motor neurons revealed many molecular mechanisms underlying fundamental events, such as neural induction, axon guidance, programmed cell death, and neuron-target interaction. Cultures of dissociated spinal motor neurons represent one important experimental paradigm. This chapter describes two alternative procedures to establish dissociated spinal motor neuron cultures with virtually no contamination by nonneuronal cells.