
Advancing Neuroscience Research
Neurodegeneration, neuroinflammation, infectious disease, and neurotrauma can have devastating effects on the Central Nervous System (CNS) that impact cognitive function, behavior, mental health, and more. Understanding the role of CNS cells such as neurons, astrocytes, glia, and oligodendrocytes as well as the pathways involved in disorders such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, Frontotemporal Dementia (FTD), Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), and Multiple Sclerosis (MS) is crucial to disease prevention, detection, and treatment.
Challenges
We know it’s difficult to acquire diseased and normal CNS tissue for research. When samples are available, extracting the most biological information from every experiment with a multi-omic platform that is easy to use is important. Traditional, low-plex methods of profiling RNA and protein such as PCR, western blotting, immunohistochemistry, or immunofluorescence staining provide limited information on CNS structure and functionality. RNA Sequencing, while more comprehensive for expression analysis, does not directly quantify transcripts, requires time-consuming, tedious steps and onerous data analysis and sacrifices the spatial arrangement of mRNAs within tissue.
NanoString offers two robust and widely-cited platforms for multiplexed proteomics and transcriptomics of challenging neuroscience sample types such as FFPE, cell lysates, and cerebrospinal fluid. The nCounter® Analysis System and GeoMx® Digital Spatial Profiler (DSP) can be used in tandem with minimal hands-on time for bulk and spatial profiling of RNA or protein to generate accurate, repeatable, and insightful results in less than 24 hours that get you to your next neuroscience publication faster.
Featured Solutions
Select from curated, multiplexed nCounter Gene Expression Panels and/or GeoMx DSP Protein assays and the Whole Transcriptome Atlas to build your own experiment. Take advantage of embedded CNS and immune cell typing signatures to quantify the relative abundance of 5 CNS cell types and 14 different immune cell types.
Case Studies
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Related Resources
Publications
Single-cell heterogeneity of EGFR and CDK4 co-amplification is linked to immune infiltration in glioblastoma
Glioblastoma (GBM) is the most aggressive brain tumor, with a median survival of ∼15 months. Targeted approaches have not been successful in this tumor type due to the large extent of intratumor heterogeneity.
Accumulation of pTau231 at the Postsynaptic Density in Early Alzheimer’s Disease
Background:: Phosphorylated cytoplasmic tau inclusions correlate with and precede cognitive deficits in Alzheimer’s disease (AD). However, pathological tau accumulation and relationships to synaptic changes remain unclear.
Macrophage infiltration promotes regrowth in MYCN-amplified neuroblastoma after chemotherapy
Despite aggressive treatment, the 5-year event-free survival rate for children with high-risk neuroblastoma is <50%. While most high-risk neuroblastoma patients initially respond to treatment, often with complete clinical remission, many eventually relapse with therapy-resistant tumors.