Investigating Gene Function for Neuronal Survival After Metabolic Stress Using Semi-Automated Fluorescence Microscopy and Automated Image Analysis

Overexpression approaches and fluorescence microscopy techniques allow investigating important spatiotemporal aspects of gene regulation as well as quantifying gene function. Consequently, fluorescence microscopy techniques help answer important questions on gene regulation such as addressing the role of a specific gene product for neuronal survival under different treatments. Here, we describe a versatile tool to measure effects of a transfected gene of interest on neuronal survival upon metabolic stress. We focus on nutrient starvation of cultured rodent primary neurons as a model of metabolic stress but our approach can easily be generalized and adapted to other cell types or to investigate single gene function in regulating neuronal survival under various conditions.