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Cellular lipid droplets are dynamic organelles that serve multiple functions in cells. They are storage hubs for neutral lipids, which can be converted into energy or used for phospholipid synthesis. The droplets play central roles in physiological and pathological conditions including atherosclerosis, obesity and related metabolic diseases, and also infectious diseases1,2. In addition, they are intriguing sources for biodiesel fuels.
Much information on the cellular roles of lipid droplets has been obtained from proteomic and lipidomic analysis of droplets purified from wide-ranging organisms3. These organisms have included bacteria4,5, yeast6-11, plants12,13, nematodes14, and flies15,16. Given the interest in the role of lipid droplets in human metabolic diseases, droplets have also been isolated from cultured animal cells and animal tissues. Cultured cell lines have included 3T3-L1 adipocytes17, Chinese hamster ovary (CHO) K2 cells18, human hepatocyes19,20, and epithelial cell lines21. Animal tissues from which droplets have been isolated have included mouse skeletal muscle22, liver23, and mammary glands23. As mentioned above, the goal of most droplet isolation studies is to perform proteomic analysis on the bound factors and lipidomic analysis on the neutral and phospholipids.
Since neutral lipids - the most numerous component of lipid droplets - are less dense than most other cellular materials, isolation of droplets has traditionally been performed using density gradient centrifugation. That technique is the centerpiece of both preps presented here. Previous techniques6,24Â are combined and modified into a visual presentation of the isolation of droplets from cultured fission yeast cells and noncultured human cells obtained from placental tissue. The goal is to show the broad applicability of this technique by choosing two vastly different cell types as starting points for the droplet isolation. This technique should be useful for those wishing to isolate droplets from most organisms.
Protocol 1 describes the isolation of lipid droplets from the fission yeast, Schizosaccharomyces pombe, which has been used as a model for observing droplet formation during eukaryotic cell division25. The budding yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae has been used extensively as a model organism for studying lipid droplet biology. Protocol 1 is applicable to both organisms and differences in the preparations are highlighted.  Â
Protocol 2 describes the isolation of lipid droplets from placental villous cells, which are in turn obtained from human term placentas. The collection of term placentas provides a unique opportunity to safely and ethically obtain 200-250 g of readily available human tissue26, which contains significant numbers of lipid droplets. This is in contrast to most lipid droplet isolation work in higher eukaryotes where the droplets originate from cultured cells. In those studies, fatty acids are often added to the culture to promote the synthesis of neutral lipids and thus the growth of droplets. This is in contrast to the work here where lipid droplets are formed under native conditions in placental tissue.  Â
The purities of the lipid droplet fractions are determined by Western Blot analysis using organelle marker antibodies. These two protocols will yield lipid droplet fractions that are suitable for subsequent proteomic and lipidomic analysis.