Immunocytochemistry: Human Neural Stem Cells

Summary

Immunocytochemistry is a powerful method to determine the presence, subcellular localization, and relative abundance of an antigen of interest in cultured cells. This protocol presents an easy-to-follow series of steps that will enable one to conserve antibodies and get the most out of one's staining.

Abstract

Immunocytochemistry is a very powerful and fairly straightforward method for determining the presence, subcellular localization, and relative abundance of an antigen of interest, most commonly a protein, in cultured cells. This protocol presents an easy-to-follow series of steps that will enable researchers to conserve primary and secondary antibodies while getting high quality, reproducible qualitative and quantitative data out of their staining. There are two aspects of this protocol that help to conserve the volume of antibody necessary for staining. For one, the cells are grown on small, circular coverslips that are placed in wells of a tissue culture plate. After fixation, the cells on coverslips can be removed from the wells of the plate. For antibody staining, the coverslip with cells is inverted onto a small drop of antibody solution on parafilm and is covered with a second piece of parafilm to prevent drying. Using this method, only ~25 μl of antibody solution is needed for each coverslip (or sample) to be stained. This protocol describes immunostaining of human neural stem/precursor cells (hNSPCs), but can be used for many other cell types.

Protocol

Day 1: Preparing German Glass Coverslips and Seeding Cells

Note: German glass coverslips are often preferable for culturing primary neural stem cells and neurons. We use the following cleaning protocol to improve cell adhesion and spreading. Position coverslips in a small rack that will allow liquid access to both sides of the coverslip. First, incubate coverslips in 1% Liquinox for 10 minutes, followed by 3 washes with deionized water. Make sure that no soap bubbles remain. Next, incubate slips in 1M HCl for 30 minutes, followed by 3 washes with deionized water. Dry coverslips at 65°C overnight. Transfer coverslips to a glass di....

Discussion

This protocol describes an immunostaining procedure for hNSPCs that minimizes the volume of antibody necessary and gives reliable cell staining. The procedure as described is best for intracellular antigens, but can be modified to stain cell surface molecules or to enhance staining of the cytoskeleton.

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Materials

List of materials used in this article

Name	Company	Catalog Number	Comments
German glass (Deutsche Spiegelglas) coverslips	Tool	Carolina Biological	WW-63-3029	12,15,18, 22, 25 mm coverslips available
Liquinox phosphate-free detergent	Reagent	Sigma-Aldrich	Z273279	very viscous
Poly-D-lysine hydrobromide	Reagent	Sigma-Aldrich	P7280
Laminin, natural mouse	Reagent	Invitrogen	23017-015
EMEM (1X)	Reagent	Mediatech, Inc.	MT-10-010-CV	Distributed by Fisher under the indicated catalog #
24 well plate	Tool	Fisher Scientific	08-772-1
Triton X-100	Reagent	Fisher Scientific	BP151-500	very viscous
Paraformaldehyde	Reagent	Sigma-Aldrich	P6148	potential carcinogen, use caution when using it in powder and solution form
Bovine Serum Albumin, IgG-free	Reagent	Jackson ImmunoResearch	001-000-161
H–chst 33342	Reagent	Invitrogen	H-1399
Vectashield	Reagent	Vector Laboratories	H-1000	viscous