Fluorescence-activated Cell Sorting for Purification of Plasmacytoid Dendritic Cells from the Mouse Bone Marrow

Summary

We report a protocol using fluorescence-activated cell sorting to isolate plasmacytoid dendritic cells (pDC) with high purity from the bone marrow of lupus-prone mice for functional studies of pDC.

Abstract

Fluorescence-activated cell sorting (FACS) is a technique to purify specific cell populations based on phenotypes detected by flow cytometry. This method enables researchers to better understand the characteristics of a single cell population without the influence of other cells. Compared to other methods of cell enrichment, such as magnetic-activated cell sorting (MCS), FACS is more flexible and accurate for cell separation due to the ability of phenotype detection by flow cytometry. In addition, FACS is usually capable of separating multiple cell populations simultaneously, which improves the efficiency and diversity of experiments. Although FACS has some limitations, it has been broadly used to purify cells for functional studies in both in vitro and in vivo settings. Here we report a protocol using fluorescence-activated cell sorting to isolate a very rare population of immune cells, plasmacytoid dendritic cells (pDC), with high purity from the bone marrow of lupus-prone mice for in vitro functional studies of pDC.

Introduction

Efficient separation of a cell population of choice from other cells enables studies of the population that may not be possible otherwise. Fluorescence-activated cell sorting (FACS) is a method to enrich an interesting cell population with high purity. ^1,2 Different cell types usually express unique molecules, or a unique combination of several molecules, on the plasma membrane that can distinguish one cell population from another. Upon binding of these cell surface molecules by specific fluorescence-conjugated antibodies, a detecting machine called flow cytometer/sorter is able to excite and detect the light signals of different fluorescent dyes that repre....

Protocol

NOTE: MRL/Mp-Fas^lpr (MRL/lpr) lupus-prone mice were bred and maintained in a specific pathogen-free facility following the requirements of Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC) at Virginia Tech (Animal Welfare Assurance Number: A3208-01). This study was carried out in strict accordance with the recommendations in the Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals of the National Institutes of Health. All animal experiments were conducted under IACUC protocol #12-062.

1. Cell Culture Medium and Sorting Buffer

1. Prepare complete cell culture medium (C10) using RPMI 1640 supplemented with 10% fetal bovine serum, 1 mM sodium pyr....

Results

We aimed to enrich bone marrow pDC with high purity, and without the influence of other cell types, from MRL/lpr lupus-prone mice of both young and old age to study the functional changes of pDC regarding their ability to produce IFNα. The first purification strategy used was MCS, which, as Figure 1 shows, led to only 7.75% purity after the enrichment. Compared to MCS, FACS enriched pDC with purity as high as 96.4%. To ensure high purity, a step-by-step gating strategy wa.......

Discussion

The protocol described in this manuscript is for high purity enrichment of live pDC that retain the ability to produce IFNα. The applications of this protocol include, but are not limited to, purification of pDC and/or any other mononuclear cells from the bone marrow of MRL/lpr and any other mouse strains for studies of cellular and molecular functions. Several critical steps in this protocol are to ensure high viability and purity of the sorted pDC. The first key step is the release of bone marrow from bones. To mi.......

Materials

List of materials used in this article

Name	Company	Catalog Number	Comments
RPMI 1640	gibco by life technologies	11875-093
Fetal bovine serum	HyClone	SH30396.03
Sodium pyruvate	gibco by life technologies	11360-070
MEM non-essential amino acids	gibco by life technologies	11140-050
HEPES	gibco by life technologies	15630-080
2-mercaptoethanol	gibco by life technologies	21985-023
L-glutamine	gibco by life technologies	25030-164
Penicillin-Streptomycin	gibco by life technologies	15140-122
1x Hank’s Balanced Salt Solution	gibco by life technologies	14175-079
MACS BSA Stock Solution	Miltenyi Biotec	130-091-376
MgCl2	SIGMA	M8266
DNase I	SIGMA	D4527
Red blood cell (RBC) lysis buffer	eBioscience	00-4300-54
Density gradient medium	GE Healthcare	17-1440-02	Ficoll-Paque Plus
anti-mouse CD19-PE	BD Pharmingen	553786
anti-mouse CD11c-PE	eBioscience	12-0114-82
anti-mouse CD11b-APC-CY7	BD Pharmingen	557657
anti-mouse PDCA-1-FITC	eBioscience	11-3172-81
anti-mouse B220-V500	BD Pharmingen	561226
DAPI	invitrogen	D3571
Plasmacytoid Dendritic Cell Isolation Kit II, mouse	Miltenyi Biotec	130-092-786
BD FACSAria I flow cytometer	BD Biosciences	643178
BD FACS Diva version 6	BD Biosciences