Femoral Bone Marrow Aspiration in Live Mice

Summary

This protocol describes a procedure for serial sampling of femoral bone marrow (BM) without requiring the sacrifice of mice. This procedure facilitates longitudinal studies of the BM composition of mice over time and provides serial access to cells within the BM for ex vivo and transplantation studies.

Abstract

Serial sampling of the cellular composition of bone marrow (BM) is a routine procedure critical to clinical hematology. This protocol describes a detailed step-by-step technical procedure for an analogous procedure in live mice which allows for serial characterization of cells present in the BM. This procedure facilitates studies aimed to detect the presence of exogenously administered cells within the BM of mice as would be done in xenograft studies for instance. Moreover, this procedure allows for the retrieval and characterization of cells enriched in the BM such as hematopoietic stem and progenitor cells (HSPCs) without sacrifice of mice. Given that the cellular composition of peripheral blood is not necessarily reflective of proportions and types of stem and progenitor cells present in the marrow, procedures which provide access to this compartment without requiring termination of the mice are very helpful. The use of femoral bone marrow aspiration is illustrated here for cytological analysis of marrow cells, flow cytometric characterization of the hematopoietic stem/progenitor compartment, and culture of sorted HSPCs obtained by femoral BM aspiration compared with conventional marrow harvest.

Introduction

All blood cells are derived from hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs). Procedures which allow access to the bone marrow (BM), the site of the vast majority of HSC’s in mice and men, without requiring sacrifice of animals, provide a resource to monitor the source of hematopoiesis serially. The overall goal of the procedure described here is to provide a detailed protocol for the sampling of BM cells from the femur of live mice which provides material representative of the cells which would be retrieved by conventional harvest of BM cells through sacrifice of the mice. The advantage of this procedure over conventional harvest of BM cells is that this procedure does not....

Protocol

All animal procedures described in this protocol were conducted in accordance with the Guidelines for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals and were approved by the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUCs) at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center.

1. Aspiration of Bone Marrow (BM) Cells from the Femur

1. Anesthetize the mouse which will undergo femoral bone marrow aspiration with isoflurane (1-4%) administered with a precision vaporizer. Depth of anesthesia should be monitored every 5-10 min throughout the procedure by observing that there is no change in respiratory rate associated with surgical manipulation and/or e....

Results

Femoral BM aspiration of a live C57/B6 mouse was utilized to obtain BM mononuclear cells followed by conventional BM harvest of the same mouse after sacrifice. BM mononuclear cells obtained by the two methods were then analyzed by (1) cytological analysis of BM cells, (2) determining the relative frequency of hematopoietic stem/progenitor cells (HSPCs), and (3) ex vivo culture of sorted HSPCs. In the latter experiment, lineage-negative Sca1+ c-KIT+ (LSK) cells were sorted from mononuclear cells obtained by BM as.......

Discussion

Serial BM aspiration is a routine procedure critical to clinical investigation of hematologic disorders in humans. The ability to perform an analogous serial sampling of BM in mice for characterization of the cellular composition and constituents of BM throughout lengthy experiments is likewise very valuable. This procedure is useful for characterization of HSPC’s without sacrificing the mouse but also for detecting the presence of additional cell types in the BM in instances where the contents of the peripheral bl.......

Materials

List of materials used in this article

Name	Company	Catalog Number	Comments
PBS	PAA	H15-002
Bovine serum albumin	PAA	K41-001
ACK lysis buffer	Homemade		in 1 L. Adjust pH 7.2 ~ 7.4 and filter sterile with 0.22 μm vacuum filter.
8.3 g Ammonium chloride	Fisher Scientific	A661-500
1 g Potassium bicarbonate	Fisher Scientific	P184-500
200 μl 0.5 M EDTA pH 8	Gibco	15575-038
RPMI 1640	PAA	E15-842
0.5 ml Tuberculin syringe 27.5 G	Becton Dickinson	305620
Sterile cell strainer 70 μm	Fisher Scientific	22363548
Isoflurane, USP	Attane	NDC:66794-014-25
Blunt-end needle	Stemcell Technologies	28110
PrecisionGlide needle 23 G	Becton Dickinson	305193
3 ml Syringe Luer-Lok tip	Becton Dickinson	309657
Non-tissue culture treated plate, 6 Well	Becton Dickinson	351146
12 x 75 mm 5 ml tubes	Becton Dickinson	352054	FACS staining
12 x 75 mm 5 ml tubes with cell-strainer cap	Becton Dickinson	352235	FACS staining
NK1.1 APC-Cy7	Biolegend	108723
CD11b APC-Cy7	Biolegend	101225
CD45R (B220) APC-Cy7	Biolegend	103223
CD3 APC-Cy7	Biolegend	100222
Ly-6G and Ly-6C (Gr-1) APC-Cy7	Biolegend	108423
Ter119 APC-Cy7	Biolegend	116223
CD19 APC-Cy7	Biolegend	302217
CD4 APC-Cy7	BioLegend	317417
CD117 (c-KIT) PE	BioLegend	105808
Ly-6A/E (Sca-1) PE-Cy7	Biolegend	122513
CD34 APC	Biolegend	128612
CD16/32 e450	eBioscience	48-0161-82
DAPI (4′,6-Diamidino-2-phenylindole dihydrochloride)	Sigma-Aldrich	32670
MethoCult GF M3434	STEMCELLTECHNOLOGIES	3434	For methocellulose culture
Carprofen	Crescent Chemical Company	C11045850	1 dose (5mg/kg)
Flow cytometer, LSRFortessa	Becton Dickinson
Puralube vet ointment (sterile petrolatum ophthalmic ointment)	Dechra-US	17033-211-38