To begin, add 0.25%Trypsin-EDTA Solution to the HeLa cells and incubate at 37 degrees Celsius for two to three minutes. Gently dissociate the cells by pipetting and seed them in new plates at a ratio of one to four for cell passage. To transfect the plasmid into HeLa cells, mix one microgram of validated PX458 sgRNA plasmid, with 50 microliters of reduced serum medium in tube A.In tube B, gently mix two microliters of the transfection reagent and 50 microliters of reduced serum medium and incubate at room temperature for five minutes.
Then, combine the contents from tubes A and B and incubate at room temperature for another five minutes. Add the mixture to the 12-well plate and incubate the cells at 37 degrees Celsius for six hours. At the end of the incubation, replace the medium with fresh DMEM medium.
After 24 or 48 hours, assess the transfection efficiency by examining the HeLa cells under a fluorescence microscope. Dissociate the transfected HeLa cells fully using 0.25%trypsin EDTA and incubate at 37 degrees Celsius for three to five minutes. Next, count the cells using a Neubauer chamber or an automated cell counter.
Plate the cells into three separate 96-well plates for each transfected population following serial dilution methods. Return the cells to a humidified incubator for one to two weeks. For phenotype-based screening and validation of CENP-E Knockout, dissociate and expand the cells in 24-well or 12-well plates for five to seven days.
Screen the mutant cells with smaller colony diameters using an inverted microscope with 10 times and 20 times magnification objective lenses. Next, harvest the cells for DNA extraction by employing the Column Animal Genomic DNA Extraction Kit following the manufacturer's instructions and set up the polymerase chain reactions. Ligate the target DNA into the pMD18-T Vector as directed by the manufacturer's protocols.
Transfect the ligated plasmid into competent DH5-Alpha cells, and proceed with the culture for clone selection. To identify the types of CENP-E Knockout, isolate the plasmid DNA with the help of a Plasmid Extraction Kit following the manufacturer's guidelines. Next, carry out Sanger sequencing for the plasmid DNA of each colony using M13 forward and reverse primers.
Seed the wild type and CENP-E mutant HeLa cells on 12-millimeter glass cover slips in a 24-well plate. Remove the complete DMEM medium and fix the cells using a 4%paraformaldehyde and PBS solution at room temperature for 10 minutes. Next, stain the nuclei with DAPI at room temperature for five minutes.
Observe and validate the CENP-E mutant cells based on chromosome alignment phenotype using a fluorescence microscope. The phenotypic screening of the colonies showed that the CENP-E Knockout cells showed increased chromosome misalignment compared to the control group.
