Apoptosis Induction and Detection in a Primary Culture of Sea Cucumber Intestinal Cells

Summary

This protocol provides an easy-to-handle method to culture the intestinal cells from sea cucumber Apostichopus japonicus and is compatible with a variety of widely available tissue samples from marine organisms including Echinodermata, Mollusca, and Crustacea.

Abstract

Primary cultured cells are used in a variety of scientific disciplines as exceptionally important tools for the functional evaluation of biological substances or characterization of specific biological activities. However, due to the lack of universally applicable cell culture media and protocols, well described cell culture methods for marine organisms are still limited. Meanwhile, the commonly occurring microbial contamination and polytropic properties of marine invertebrate cells further impede the establishment of an effective cell culture strategy for marine invertebrates. Here, we describe an easy-to-handle method for culturing intestinal cells from sea cucumber Apostichopus japonicus; additionally, we provide an example of in vitro apoptosis induction and detection in primary cultured intestinal cells. Moreover, this experiment provides details about the appropriate culture medium and cell collection method. The described protocol is compatible with a variety of widely available tissue samples from marine organisms including Echinodermata, Mollusca, and Crustacea, and it can provide sufficient cells for multiple in vitro experimental applications. This technique would enable researchers to efficiently manipulate primary cell cultures from marine invertebrates and to facilitate the functional evaluation of targeted biological materials on cells.

Introduction

Culturing cells under artificially controlled conditions, and not in their natural environment, provides uniform experimental materials for biological studies, especially for species which cannot be easily cultured in a laboratory environment. Marine invertebrates account for more than 30% of all animal species¹, and they provide numerous biological materials for undertaking research on the regulatory mechanisms of specific biological processes, such as regeneration^2,3, stress response⁴, and environmental adaptation^5,

Protocol

1. Cell Culture Medium Preparation

1. Coelomic fluid preparation
   1. Coelomic fluid collection: Under sterile conditions, dissect a healthy sea cucumber (wet weight of 85-105 g), collect coelomic fluid, and store it in a sterile glass flask.
   2. Coelomic cell removal: Centrifuge the coelomic fluid in 50 mL centrifuge tubes at 1,700 x g for 5 min and transfer the supernatant into a new sterile glass flask; next, collect the cell-free coelomic fluid of the sea cucumber.
   3. Complement components inactivation: Incubate the sterile glass flask, containing the sea cu....

Results

Here, we established primary intestinal cell culture of A. japonicus and passaged the cells. Figure 1 shows round cells in different stages of culturing. And the EdU staining assays provide direct evidences to reveal the proliferative activity of these round cells in later stage (Figure 2). We also slightly adjusted the protocol, culturing minced tissue blocks instead of filtrated cells; furthermore, a spindle cell type could be cultured successfully. T.......

Discussion

Extensive research efforts have been devoted to establishing cell lines in last decades, however, it is still difficult to make a progress on long-term culture of cells from marine invertebrates^14,22. It has been reported that cultured cells from regenerating holothurian tissues were viable for a long period of time and high activity of proliferation can be detected in specific cells^17,23. However, for th.......

Materials

List of materials used in this article

Name	Company	Catalog Number	Comments
0.1 μm filter	Millipore	SLVV033RS
0.22 μm filter	Millipore	SLGP033RB
0.25% Trypsin	Genom	GNM25200
100 μm filter	Falcon	352360
4 cm dishes	ExCell Bio	CS016-0124
4% paraformaldehyde solution	Sinopharm Chemical Reagent	80096618	in PBS
Benchtop Centrifuges	Beckman	Allegra X-30R
BeyoClick EdU-488 kit	Beyotime	C0071S
CaCl2	Sinopharm Chemical Reagent	10005817
Constant temperature incubator	Lucky Riptile	HN-3
Dexamethasone	Sinopharm Chemical Reagent	XW00500221
Electric thermostatic water bath	senxin17	DK-S28
Ethanol	Sinopharm Chemical Reagent	80176961	75%
Fibroblast Growth Factor(FGF)	PEPROTECH	100-18B
Fluorescent microscope	Leica DMI3000B	DMI3000B
Garamycin	Sinopharm Chemical Reagent	XW14054101
Glucose	Sinopharm Chemical Reagent	63005518
Hoechst33258 Staining solution	Beyotime	C1017
Insulin	Sinopharm Chemical Reagent	XW1106168001
Insulin like Growth Factor(IGF)	PEPROTECH	100-11
KCl	Sinopharm Chemical Reagent	10016308
Leibovitz's L-15	Genom	GNM41300
L-glutamine (100 mg/mL)	Genom	GNM-21051
MgCl2	Sinopharm Chemical Reagent	XW77863031
Na2SO4	Sinopharm Chemical Reagent	10020518
NaCl	Sinopharm Chemical Reagent	10019308
NaOH	Sinopharm Chemical Reagent	10019718
PBS	Solarbio	P1020	pH7.2-7.4
Penicillin-Streptomycin	Genom	GNM15140
PH meter	Bante	A120
Taurine	SIGMA	T0625
VE	Seebio	185791