An Adipocyte Cell Culture Model to Study the Impact of Protein and Micro-RNA Modulation on Adipocyte Function

Summary

Presented here is a protocol to deliver oligonucleotides such as small-interfering RNA (siRNA), micro-RNA mimics (miRs), or anti-micro-RNA (anti-miR) into mature adipocytes to modulate protein and micro-RNA expression.

Abstract

Alteration of adipocyte function contributes to the pathogenesis of metabolic diseases including Type 2 diabetes and insulin resistance. This highlights the need to better understand the molecular mechanism involved in adipocyte dysfunction to develop new therapies against obesity-related diseases. Modulating the expression of proteins and micro-RNAs in adipocytes remains highly challenging. This paper describes a protocol to differentiate murine fibroblasts into mature adipocytes and to modulate the expression of proteins and micro-RNAs in mature adipocytes through reverse-transfection using small-interfering RNA (siRNA) and micro-RNA mimicking (miR mimic) oligonucleotides. This reverse-transfection protocol involves the incubation of the transfection reagent and the oligonucleotides to form a complex in the cell culture plate to which the mature adipocytes are added. The adipocytes are then allowed to reattach to the adherent plate surface in the presence of the oligonucleotides/transfection reagent complex. Functional analyses such as the study of insulin signaling, glucose uptake, lipogenesis, and lipolysis can be performed on the transfected 3T3-L1 mature adipocytes to study the impact of protein or micro-RNA manipulation on adipocyte function.

Introduction

Obesity is considered a major risk factor for numerous metabolic diseases, including insulin resistance (IR), Type 2 Diabetes (T2D), and cardiovascular diseases¹. Current therapies have failed to stop the constantly rising prevalence of these diseases, and the management of the IR of obese and diabetic patients remains an important clinical issue. Adipose tissue plays a crucial role in the control of energy homeostasis, and its pathological expansion during obesity contributes to the development of IR and T2D^2,3. This highlights the need to better understand the molecular mechanism invo....

Protocol

NOTE: Use sterile techniques to perform all the steps of the protocol in a laminar flow cell culture hood. See Table of Materials for details about all reagents and equipment.

1. Differentiation of murine 3T3-L1 fibroblasts into adipocytes

1. Grow the 3T3-L1 fibroblasts in 100 mm dishes in culture medium-DMEM without pyruvate, 25 mM glucose, 10% newborn calf serum, and 1% penicillin and streptomycin (Figure 1A). Place the dishes in a tissue culture incubator (7% CO₂ and 37 °C).
2. Two days after confluence, change the culture medium, replacing with DMEM without p....

Results

Using the procedure of reverse-transfection described here to modulate the expression of proteins or micro-RNAs in 3T3-L1 adipocytes, the adipocytes have been shown to preserve their morphology after the transfection (Figure 1B,C). Indeed, 2 days after the transfection, the adipocytes were well-spread and attached to the plate and presented multilocular lipid droplets that are a characteristic of mature 3T3-L1 adipocytes. The lipid content wa.......

Discussion

This paper presents a detailed protocol for the differentiation and transfection of mature adipocytes. This reverse-transfection method is a simple, economical, and highly efficient method to transfect oligonucleotides such as, but not limited to, siRNAs, micro-RNA mimics, and anti-micro-RNAs into 3T3-L1 adipocytes, which is one of the most difficult cell lines to transfect. This method has some limitations that need to be considered. This protocol is not efficient for transfection with plasmid DNA, which limits the util.......

Materials

List of materials used in this article

Name	Company	Catalog Number	Comments
12 well Tissue Culture Plate	Dutscher	353043
2.5% Trypsin (10x)	Gibco	15090-046	diluted to 5x with D-PBS
2-Propanol	Sigma	I9516
3-Isobutyl-1-methylxanthine	Sigma-Aldrich	D5879
Accell Non-targeting Pool	Horizon Discovery	D-001910-10-05
Bovine Serum Albumin (BSA)	Sigma	A7030
Collagen type I from calf skin	Sigma-Aldrich	C8919
Dexamethasone	Sigma-Aldrich	D1756
D-PBS	Gibco	14190144
Dulbecco's  Modified Eagles's Medium (DMEM)	Gibco	41965062	4.5 g/L D-Glucose; L-Glutamine; no Pyruvate
Ethanol	Sigma	51976
FAM-labeled Negative Control si-RNA	Invitrogen	AM4620
Fetal Bovine Serum	Gibco	10270-106
Free Glycerol Reagent	Sigma-Aldrich	F6428
Glycerol Standard Solution	Sigma-Aldrich	G7793
HSP90 antibody	Santa Cruz	sc-131119	Dilution : 0.5 µg/mL
Improved Minimal Essential Medium (Opti-MEM)	Gibco	31985-047
Insulin, Human Recombinant	Gibco	12585-014
miRIDIAN micro-RNA mimics	Horizon Discovery
miRNeasy Mini Kit	Qiagen	217004
miScript II RT Kit	Qiagen	218161
miScript Primer Assays Hs_RNU6-2_11	Qiagen	MS00033740
miScript Primer Assays Mm_miR-34a_1	Qiagen	MS00001428
miScript SYBR Green PCR Kit	Qiagen	219073
Newborn Calf Serum	Gibco	16010-159
Oil Red O	Sigma	O0625
ON-TARGETplus Mouse Plin1 si-RNA SMARTpool	Horizon Discovery	L-056623-01-0005
Penicillin and Streptomycin	Gibco	15140-122
Perilipin-1 antibody	Cell Signaling	3470	Dilution : 1/1000
Petri dish 100 mm x 20 mm	Dutscher	353003
PKB antibody	Cell Signaling	9272	Dilution : 1/1000
PKB Phospho Thr308 antibody	Cell Signaling	9275	Dilution : 1/1000
Rosiglitazone	Sigma-Aldrich	R2408
Transfection reagent (INTERFERin)	Polyplus	409-10
α-tubulin antibody	Sigma aldrich	T6199	Dilution : 0.5 µg/mL
Vamp2 antibody	R&D Systems	MAB5136	Dilution : 0.1 µg/mL