image-based-flow-cytometry-technique-to-evaluate-changes-granulocyte

Image-based Flow Cytometry Technique to Evaluate Changes in Granulocyte Function <em>In Vitro</em>

Granulocytes play a key role in the body&#8217;s innate immune response to bacterial and viral infections. While methods exist to measure granulocyte ...

University of North Texas

Granulocytes play a key role in innate immunity and the most common functional assays are phagocytosis and oxidative burst. The purpose of this technical note is to use image-based flow cytometry to divide activated granulocytes into unique subsets based on their degree of phagocytosis and oxidative burst in response to different experimental incubations. Prior to the experiments, all reagents were titered to determine the lowest dose that resulted in an acceptable signal to noise ratio. Heparinized, whole blood (100 µl) was mixed with one of two bioparticles (E. coli and S. aureus) and DHE (10 µg/ml) and incubated for 5, 10, 20, 40, 60, 80, 100, 120, and 140 min in a 37°C water bath. An additional tube kept on ice was used as a negative control. All subsequent processing steps were completed on ice in the dark to minimize additional activation of cells. After the 37°C incubation, N-ethylmaleimide (15 mM) was added to halt phagocytosis, preventing the uptake of additional microparticles. Suspensions were labeled with CD66b-APC and CD45-APCeFluor780 for 60 min and a fix/lyse solution was added. Prior to acquisition, 7AAD was added to stain nuclear DNA. A minimum of 5,000 granulocyte (CD66b+) events were acquired using a Millipore-Amnis FlowSight equipped with blue (488 nm, 60 mW), red (642 nm, 100 mW), and side scatter (785 nm, 12 mW) lasers. Samples were compensated and analyzed using Amnis IDEAS software (v.5.0.983.0). Image-based analysis allowed us to divide activated granulocytes into three distinct subsets, whose relative abundance changed as a function of both bioparticle type and incubation length. The method described in this technical note represents a potential novel adaptation to common methods of assessing granulocyte function. More research is needed to test and validate our image-based method in clinical conditions that impair granulocyte function.

Image-based cytometry reveals three distinct subsets of activated granulocytes based on phagocytosis and oxidative burst.

Chronic vascular disease is partially characterized by the presence of lesions along the vascular endothelial wall. Current FDA-approved clinical techniques lack the ability to measure very early changes in endothelial cell health. When endothelial cells are damaged, they release endothelial microparticles (EMPs) into circulation. Thus, blood EMP concentration may represent a useful cardiovascular disease biomarker. Despite the potential value of EMPs, current flow cytometry techniques may not consistently distinguish EMPs from other small cell particles. The purpose of this study was to use imaging flow cytometry to modify existing methods of identifying EMPs based on cell-surface receptor expression and visual morphology. Platelet poor plasma (PPP) was isolated using four different techniques, each utilizing a two-step serial centrifugation process. The cell-surface markers used in this study were selected based on those that are commonly reported in the literature. PPP (100μL) was labeled with CD31, CD42a, CD45, CD51, CD66b, and CD144 for 30-min in dark on ice. Based on replicated experiments, EMPs were best identified by cell-surface CD144 expression relative to other commonly reported EMP markers (CD31 & CD51). It is important to note that contaminating LMPs, GMPs, and PMPs were thought to be removed in the preparation of PPP. However, upon analysis of prepared samples staining CD31 against CD51 revealed a double-positive population that was less than 1% EMPs. In contrast, when using CD144 to identify EMPs, ~87% of observed particles were free of contaminating microparticles. Using a counterstain of CD42a, this purity can be improved to over 99%. More research is needed to understand how our improved EMP measurement method can be used in experimental models measuring acute vascular responses or chronic vascular diseases.

Article	Year
Image-based cytometry reveals three distinct subsets of activated granulocytes based on phagocytosis and oxidative burst. Cytometry. Part A : the journal of the International Society for Analytical Cytology\| PubMed ID: 23839911	2013
An analysis of endothelial microparticles as a function of cell surface antibodies and centrifugation techniques. Journal of immunological methods\| PubMed ID: 24603004	2014

Randall R. Williams

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