| Summary: | This study aims at providing a new technique for the isolation and culture of goldfish microglial cells. So far no protocol has been designed for the growth of these cells in vitro, despite the growing interest in the remarkable capacity of goldfish central nervous system (CNS) for regenerating severed axons. This newly developed technique has little or no similarity to those used in the isolation of mammalian microglia, and is distinguished by its simple setup and its fast yield for microglial cells. In addition, a virtually pure population of microglia was generated when plated on untreated plastic dishes, eliminating further need for purification. This technique may thus provide a starting point for future characterization of the microglial cells in vitro, which may eventually help toward building a better understanding of the function and biology of these cells. A preliminary morphological characterization of the cells has also been conducted, in addition to groundwork experiments on the phagocytic activity of these cells in vitro, using myelin to stimulate phagocytosis. These assays were oriented toward providing a comparison to the mammalian cultures of microglia, and so far, displayed several similarities in morphologies and phagocytosis.
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