Begin by attaching a magnetic separator to its stand. Connect a selection column to the magnetic separator and place a 70 micron cell strainer on top of the selection column. Place a 50 milliliter tube beneath the selection column to collect the flow.
Once the mouse brain cells reach 80%confluency, aspirate the medium and rinse the cells with PBS. Add 0.25%trypsin to detach the adherence cells and incubate at 37 degrees Celsius for five minutes. Then add a stopping buffer.
Centrifuge the cell suspension at 300 G for five minutes, and remove the supernatant. For antibody staining, resuspend 10 to the seven cells in 100 microliters of PBS. Then add 10 microliters of LYVE-1 antibody solution and mix thoroughly.
Incubate the mixture for 30 minutes in the dark at four degrees Celsius. After incubation, centrifuge the cells and discard the supernatant. Then rinse the cells by adding one milliliter of PBS and centrifuging at 300 G for five minutes.
For microbead labeling, resuspend the pellet in 100 microliters of PBS and 20 microliters of microbeads. Make swell and incubate for 30 minutes in the dark at four degrees Celsius. Then centrifuge the suspension and wash the pellet with one milliliter of PBS.
Again, centrifuge and resuspend the pellet in four milliliters of PBS for magnetic negative exclusion. Pass the cell suspension through a 70 micron strainer to eliminate clumps. Prepare the selection column by rinsing it with three milliliters of PBS.
Then add cell suspension into the selection column. Wash the column with three milliliters of PBS and collect LYVE-1 negative cells into a 50 milliliter tube. For magnetic positive selection, pipette six milliliters of PBS into the selection column.
Then flush the magnetically labeled cells by firmly pushing the plunger into the selection column to obtain LYVE-1 positive LLECs. Next, centrifuge the positive cell suspension and remove the supernatant. Plate 10 to the fifth cells per square centimeter into a T25 flask with five milliliters of culture medium.
Maintain the culture by replacing 50%of the medium every alternate day. When the cells reach 80%confluency, detach them as demonstrated previously before performing cell passage. Flow cytometry analysis revealed that the percentage of LYVE-1 positive cells in passage two was not significantly different from passage three after MACS, indicating a purity greater than 95%Immunofluorescent staining confirmed co-staining of LYVE-1 with PDPN, VEGFR-3 and PROX1, establishing the identity of LLECs.
LYVE-1 positive cells did not express F48 and platelet derived growth factor beta, effectively distinguishing LLECs from macrophages and fibroblasts. Leptomeningeal cells before MACS displayed heterogeneous morphology ranging from round spheres to fused fiber shapes. However, post MACS, LLECs exhibited typical endothelial-like features such as spindle and cobblestone shapes.
