1. Human lung epithelial cell culture and cigarette smoke extract (CSE) treatment
- Culture human BEAS-2B cells in HITES medium (500 mL of DMEM/F12, 2.5 mg insulin, 2.5 mg transferrin, 2.5 mg sodium selenite, 2.5 mg transferrin, 10 μM hydrocortisone, 10 μM β-estradiol, 10 mM HEPES, and 2 mM L-glutamine) supplemented with 10% fetal bovine serum (FBS) as previously described24.
- Culture human primary small airway epithelial cells (HSAEC) in the airway epithelial cell culture medium (500 mL of Airway Cell Basal Medium, 500 µg/mL HSA, 0.6 µM linoleic acid, 0.6 µg/mL lecithin, 6 mM L-glutamine, 0.4% extract P, 1.0 µM epinephrine, 5 µg/mL transferrin, 10 nM T3, 1 µg/mL hydrocortisone, rh EGF 5 ng/mL, and 5 µg/mL rh insulin). Incubate the cells at 37 °C in 5% CO2.
- Dissociate the cells with 1 mL of 0.25% trypsin for 5 min until the cells completely detach from the bottom of the plate.
- Add 10 mL of complete HITES medium to neutralize trypsin and collect the cells in a 15 mL tube. Centrifuge at 4 °C at 300 x g for 5 min.
CAUTION: Carefully monitor the time for trypsin digestion by microscopy, because overdigestion may cause cell death. - Discard the supernatant and resuspend the cells in 2 mL of HITES medium with 10% FBS.
- Pipette 10 µL of the above cell suspension onto the plate and insert it into an automated cell counter to obtain the concentration in cells/mL.
- Plate BEAS-2B cells at a concentration of 3 × 105 cells/mL into 6 well plates in a total volume of 2 mL in HITES medium supplemented with 10% of FBS for overnight culture.
- Treat the cells at approximately 80% confluency, or 5 x 105 cells/mL, with 4% cigarette smoke extract (CSE) for 3 h. Before CSE treatment, change the medium with HITES medium with 1% of FBS.
2. Bacterial infection
- Add P. aeruginosa or P. fluorescens Migula (~1 × 107 CFU/mL) to each well of the CSE-treated cells and incubate for 1 h at 37 °C in 5% CO2.
- Aspirate the supernatants and replace with 2 mL of fresh HITES medium to treat with 4% CSE and 100 µg/mL gentamicin.
NOTE: Gentamicin is used because it is unable to penetrate human lung epithelial cellular membranes. Thus, it can kill all the bacteria in the medium but not those that invaded the lung epithelial cells. - After 1 h of CSE/gentamicin treatment at 37 °C in 5% CO2, aspirate the supernatants and wash the cells 3x with PBS for the subsequent bacterial concentration determination.
NOTE: To confirm the internalized bacteria, cells infected with GFP-labeled P. fluorescens Migula were observed under fluorescent microscopy.
3. Determination of bacterial concentration using the drop plate method
- To determine bacterial load in infected cells with the drop plate method, wash the gentamycin-treated cells 2x with 2 mL of cold PBS.
- Add 1 mL of cell lysis buffer (0.5% triton X-100 in PBS) to each well.
- Dilute the cell lysates containing the internalized bacteria in a gradient (1:10, 1:100, 1:1,000, and 1:10,000) for the following inoculation to the TSB agar plate.
- After 16 h of incubation, obtain the results of CFU by counting the bacterial colonies.