Neonatal pial surface electroporation

Abstract

Over the past several years the pial surface has been identified as a germinal niche of importance during embryonic, perinatal and adult neuro- and gliogenesis, including after injury. However, methods for genetically interrogating these progenitor populations and tracking their lineages had been limited owing to a lack of specificity or time consuming production of viruses. Thus, progress in this region has been relatively slow with only a handful of investigations of this location. Electroporation has been used for over a decade to study neural stem cell properties in the embryo, and more recently in the postnatal brain. Here we describe an efficient, rapid, and simple technique for the genetic manipulation of pial surface progenitors based on an adapted electroporation approach. Pial surface electroporation allows for facile genetic labeling and manipulation of these progenitors, thus representing a time-saving and economical approach for studying these cells.