Cultured ex vivo human brain tissue maintains cell-type transcriptional identities

There is growing recognition of the need for human-based models of the nervous system and its diseases. We used single-nucleus RNA sequencing of six patient samples to determine how well various cell types maintain their transcriptional identities over two weeks in organotypic slice culture. Patient samples included two pediatric temporal lobectomies, one adult frontal cortex, two glioblastomas, and one medulloblastoma. For each patient sample, we compared day 0 (flash-frozen at collection) to day 14 (organotypic slice culture) tissue. We found generally high correlations between day 0 and day 14 transcriptional profiles across cell types, especially in tumour cells, microglia, oligodendrocytes, and endothelial cells. This holds significant promise for the use of ex vivo human brain tissue in mechanistic studies and therapeutic screens.