Figure 1

Defining the cell purity of the three different glial cell culture systems. Mixed glial cultures (MGC), pure astrocytes (Astro) and pure microglial cultures (MG) were established as described in Materials and Methods, and then analyzed by immunofluorescence for expression of the astrocyte marker GFAP (Cy3, red) or the microglial marker Mac-1 (AlexaFluor 488, green). Scale bar = 50 μm. Note that MGC contain both astrocytes and microglia. In contrast, neurosphere-derived pure astrocyte cultures contain only astrocytes with no microglia, whereas pure microglial cultures contain only microglia.