Hi everyone!

I have a question regarding human dermal fibroblast / mouse embryonic fibroblast (MEF) and astrocytes physiology at different stages.

I am about to follow a protocol for motor neuron (MNs) isolation, link of the protocol is given below.

https://www.nature.com/articles/srep16763.pdf

They used human dermal fibroblast, in order to improve the survival of MNs beyond 5 days.

My question is, whether MEF can be used as an alternative of human dermal fibroblast.

My second question regarding astrocytes physiology at embryonic stage E14.5 or P7, as literature said that astrocytes get mature at E14.5 –P7. Considering the astrocytes maturation, what should be the better approach to co culture MNs and astrocytes, when someone is having significant reduction pattern of astrocytes rather than astrocytes reactivity.

Comments will be highly appreciated.

Thanks

Shabbir