I want to check the effect of a drug that may affect some gene in brain by RT PCR. I can not have brain sample to see the expression changes but if that gene is expressed in blood then how informative it will be to check the expression of that gene in WBC?
Hi Sujit,
It really depends. Some drugs do not pass blood brain barrier. So if you treat your subjects with the drug which doesn't enter the nervous system and you test gene expression in WBC instead of the brain, your results very likely won't tell anything. Even the drug successfully passes BBB, brain and blood are totally different systems, it won't not be very informative to look at blood alone. I assume you were saying that you can't get access to human brain samples? Can you do the experiment in animals (in vivo) or simply in vitro? Say, isolating neurons from mice or rats and treat the cells with your drug and then collect the cells for RT-PCR, or administering your drug to mice and then collect their brains for RT-PCR?
Best,
Katie
In this website, there are all brain cancer and normal cell line list. You can select the most appropriate for your purpose and administer your drug in vitro.
http://www.atcc.org/~/media/PDFs/Cancer%20and%20Normal%20cell%20lines%20tables/Brain%20cancer%20and%20normal%20cell%20lines.ashx
Sincerely,
Sercan
@ Katie: yes i was asking it coz we can't have access to the brain samples. I think animal model based study would be helpful in such case, in-vitro results may not be replicated in-vivo.
Thnx for replying.
Hi Sujit,
If you are interested in setting up in vitro experiments using isolated human neurons, you can email me at [email protected]. That probably will give you better idea of how your drug works in human system.
Katie
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