Investigation of colominic acid effects on immortalized Schwann cells

The purpose of the present study is to influence of CA coating on immortalized Schwann cells in vitro in comparison to standard culture conditions as well as to laminin as a positive standard. CA is a homopolymer of polysialic acid (PSA), which has – attached to the neuronal cell adhesion molecule (NCAM) – emerged as particulate attractive candidate for promoting morphological plasticity of axonal processes during axonal path finding and activity-dependent remodelling. For this purpose self-spotted microarrays with 352 neurospecific genes were hybridized with mRNA from immortalized Schwann cells cultivated on different coating conditions: In order to enable a comprehensive comparison to the established coating material laminin as well as to standard coating conditions (cultivation on the cell culture surface) a loop-design has been chosen, which is based on the dye-swap design and facilitates a direct comparison of the different states. Results from 3 microarrays are summarized in this study. The samples originate from different coatings. Microarrays were hybridized in a loop design with one common reference using a dye swap approach.