Whole Mount Immunofluorescent Staining of the Neonatal Mouse Retina to Investigate Angiogenesis In vivo

Summary

The neonatal murine retina provides a well characterized physiological model of angiogenesis, which permits investigations of the roles of different genes or drugs that modulate angiogenesis in an in vivo context. Immunofluorescent staining to accurately visualize the vascular plexus is pivotal to the success of these types of studies.

Abstract

Angiogenesis is the complex process of new blood vessel formation defined by the sprouting of new blood vessels from a pre-existing vessel network. Angiogenesis plays a key role not only in normal development of organs and tissues, but also in many diseases in which blood vessel formation is dysregulated, such as cancer, blindness and ischemic diseases. In adult life, blood vessels are generally quiescent so angiogenesis is an important target for novel drug development to try and regulate new vessel formation specifically in disease. In order to better understand angiogenesis and to develop appropriate strategies to regulate it, models are required that accurately reflect the different biological steps that are involved. The mouse neonatal retina provides an excellent model of angiogenesis because arteries, veins and capillaries develop to form a vascular plexus during the first week after birth. This model also has the advantage of having a two-dimensional (2D) structure making analysis straightforward compared with the complex 3D anatomy of other vascular networks. By analyzing the retinal vascular plexus at different times after birth, it is possible to observe the various stages of angiogenesis under the microscope. This article demonstrates a straightforward procedure for analyzing the vasculature of a mouse retina using fluorescent staining with isolectin and vascular specific antibodies.

Introduction

Angiogenesis is a complex developmental process defined by the formation of new blood vessels from a pre-existing vessel network and is regulated by several signalling pathways. The most prominent of these is the VEGF pathway. VEGF is released by ischemic cells and leads to the initiation of angiogenic sprouting in neighboring blood vessels. The leading endothelial cell from a new vascular sprout is a 'tip' cell, which produces filopodia that reach out towards the source of VEGF, and is followed by proliferating 'stalk' endothelial cells. In this way, activated endothelial cells migrate and proliferate towards an avascular region where they form new vascular tubes. In....

Protocol

All steps are performed at room temperature, unless otherwise indicated.

1. Enucleation and Fixation of Postnatal Eyes

1. Place humanely killed mouse pup on its side, remove the skin covering the eye with scissors.
2. Use scissors and forceps to enucleate the eye.
3. Place scissors below the enucleated eye, cut the optic nerve and surrounding tissues and lift out the eye. Transfer to a 24-well plate containing 4% paraformaldehyde (PFA) made up in 2x PBS at room temperature.
4. Allow each eye to fix for 10 - 15 min, then transfer to cold 2x PBS on ice for 5 - 10 min. It is best to stagger enucleations and subseq....

Results

After dissection the retina should look like a flat flower (Figure 1). By using the protocol, outlined above, endothelial cells can be seen using isolectin B4-Alexa488 staining and supporting vascular muscle cells are visualized using anti-alpha smooth muscle actin (Figure 2). The low power view using a 5X objective in Figure 2 allows an overview of the vascular organization of the retina. Also, by using a different combination of antibodies given in the protocol above, .......

Discussion

The method presented here offers a simple and efficient way to obtain images of stained whole mount preparations of neonatal mouse retinas, making it an easily quantifiable and physiologically relevant model of angiogenesis. Initially, the mouse eye can be quite difficult to dissect due to its small size and globe shape, so some practice and good dissection tools are needed for reliable results. Dissection of eyes prepared in 2x concentration of PBS is important because this causes a small amount of water loss from the e.......

Materials

List of materials used in this article

Name	Company	Catalog Number	Comments
Material
Plastic pipettes 3 ml	Scientific Laboratory Supplies	PIP4210	Remove tip with scissors to create a wide bore
BD Falcon 24-well plates	Scientific Laboratory Supplies	353226
Select Petri dishes TV 90 mm	Scientific Laboratory Supplies	SLS2002
Histobond slides	VWR	631-0624
Coverslips 22 x 22 mm	VWR	631-1336
Dumont Tweezers #5	World precision instruments	14095
Spring scissors 10.5 cm long, with straight 8 mm blades	World precision instruments	501235	Used for enucleation
Vannas scissors 8.5 cm long, with straight 7 mm blades, and 0.025 x 0.015 mm superfine tips	World precision instruments	500086	Used for dissecting retina
Superfine vannas scissors 8 cm long with straight 3 mm blades, and 0.015 x 0.015 mm superfine tips	World precision instruments	501778	Used for dissecting retina
crystal clear’ tubes 2 ml	Starlab	E1420-2000
Reagents
Sodium phosphate dibasic	Sigma	S0876	PBS reagent
Potassium phosphate monobasic	Sigma	P5655	PBS reagent
Sodium chloride	Sigma	S9625	PBS reagent
Paraformaldehyde	Sigma	P6148	Make up in 2x PBS and store at -20 °C
BSA	Sigma	A7638
Triton X-100	Sigma	T9284
Donkey serum	Sigma	D9663
Goat serum	Vector	S-1000
Prolong Gold anti-fade reagent	Invitrogen	P36930	Mounting reagent
Isolectin GS-IB4-alexa 594	Invitrogen	I21413	Use at 1:200 dilution
Isolectin GS-IB4-alexa 488	Invitrogen	I21411	Use at 1:200 dilution
Primary Antibodies
Anti-NG2 (rabbit polyclonal )	Millipore	AB5320	Detects pericytes
Anti-GFAP (clone GA5, mouse monoclonal)	Millipore	MAB360	Detects astrocytes
Anti-Desmin (clone Y66, rabbit monoclonal)	Millipore	04-585	Detects pericytes
Anti-Collagen IV (rabbit polyclonal )	Chemicon	AB756P	Detects vascular basement membrane
Anti-alpha smooth muscle actin-Cy3 (clone 1A4, mouse monoclonal)	Sigma	C6198	Detects vascular smooth muscle cells.
Anti-Endoglin (clone MJ7/18, rat monoclonal)	BD Pharmingen	550546	Detects endothelial cells
Anti-CD31 (clone MEC13.3, rat monoclonal)	BD Pharmingen	553370	Detects endothelial cells
Anti-VE-Cadherin (clone 11D4.1, rat monoclonal)	BD Pharmingen	550548	Detects endothelial cell junctions
Anti-Alk1 (goat polyclonal)	R&D Systems	AF770	Detects endothelial cells
Secondary Antibodies
Goat anti-rabbit-Alexa594	Invitrogen	A11012	All secondary antibodies are aliquoted immediately on arrival and stored at -20 °C.
Goat anti-rat-Alexa488	Invitrogen	A11006	All secondary antibodies are aliquoted immediately on arrival and stored at -20 °C.
Goat anti-rat-Alexa594	Invitrogen	A11007	All secondary antibodies are aliquoted immediately on arrival and stored at -20 °C.
Goat anti-mouse-Alexa488	Invitrogen	A11029	All secondary antibodies are aliquoted immediately on arrival and stored at -20 °C.
Donkey anti-goat-Alexa594	Invitrogen	A11058	All secondary antibodies are aliquoted immediately on arrival and stored at -20 °C.
Microscopes
Dissection microscope	Zeiss	Stemi SV6
Camera	Zeiss	Axiocam HRc	Camera for dissection microscope
Epifluorescent Microscope	Zeiss	Axioimager with Apotome
Camera	Zeiss	Axiocam HRm	Camera for Axioimager
Confocal Microscope	Nikon	A1R