Isolation and primary culture of chick embryonic neural crest cells

we aimed at presenting a simple and efficient method for isolating and characterizing the neural crest cells.

The hen’s fertilized eggs were incubated for about 35h at 38°c and 55-60% humidity until the embryos reached to stages 10-12 according to Hamburger-Hamilton developmental stage table. Then the embryos were removed from the egg’s yolk and the neural tube was isolated and cultured for 24 h in a tissue culture dish to release neural crest cell. Then after, the neural tube was removed and allowed to NCC to expand for further 5 days. Finally, the cells were collected and subjected to PCR to study their gene expression profile.

The neural tube released NCC and these cells proliferated in culture condition. They also expressed markers including Slug, Sox9 ,and Sox10 by the RT-PCR method.

The neural tube can release NCC in culture condition and these cells can proliferate in the presence of an appropriate medium.