Before beginning, perform synovial fibroblast isolation and use the non-adherent cells collected from the collagen-coated dish in this procedure. Seed the non-adherent cells on 40 to 60 millimeter dishes that have not been coated with collagen. Culture the bulk cells for one day at 37 degrees Celsius in a humidified atmosphere with 5%carbon dioxide.
To remove non-adherent lymphocytes, aspirate the cultured medium and then add fresh culture medium. Culture the adherent bulk cells for one to two weeks with medium changes every two days, while maintaining confluence. Then wash two times with PBS or HBSS.
Select for synovial macrophages by treating with 0.05%trypsin in HBSS and incubate for three minutes at 37 degrees Celsius in a humidified atmosphere with 5%carbon dioxide. Then add culture medium gently to 0.05%trypsin in HBSS. After this step, do not pour the medium directly onto the cells.
To remove detached cells, aspirate the cultured medium and then add fresh culture medium gently. Repeat two or three times and maintain the cells on the dish in fresh culture medium until use. Macrophage-like cells were isolated from seven to eight weeks old female C57BL/6 mice and analyzed by RT-qPCR.
mRNA expression of pan-macrophage markers CD68, EMR1, ITGAM, CSF1R showed macrophage rich isolation from the synovitis tissue. To establish the purity of macrophages, surface protein markers for macrophages and other cell types were analyzed by flow cytometry. More than 90%of the cells expressed macrophage markers CD45, CD11b and F4/80, whereas the expression of neutrophil marker Ly6G and T-cell marker CD3 was lower than 1%
