Functional Characterization of Regulatory Macrophages That Inhibit Graft-reactive Immunity

Summary

Macrophages are plastic cells of the hematopoietic system that have a crucial role in protective immunity and homeostasis. In this report, we describe optimized in vitro techniques to phenotypically and functionally characterize graft-infiltrating regulatory macrophages that accumulate in the transplanted organ under tolerogenic conditions.

Abstract

Macrophage accumulation in transplanted organs has long been recognized as a feature of allograft rejection¹. Immunogenic monocytes infiltrate the allograft early after transplantation, mount a graft reactive response against the transplanted organ, and initiate organ rejection². Recent data suggest that suppressive macrophages facilitate successful long-term transplantation³ and are required for the induction of transplantation tolerance⁴. This suggests a multidimensional concept of macrophage ontogeny, activation, and function, which demands a new roadmap for the isolation and analysis of macrophage function⁵. Due to the plasticity of macrophages, it is necessary to provide a methodology to isolate and characterize macrophages, depending on the tissue environment, and to define their functions according to different scenarios. Here, we describe a protocol for immune characterization of graft-infiltrating macrophages and the methods we used to functionally evaluate their capacity to inhibit CD8⁺ T proliferation and to promote CD4⁺Foxp3⁺ Treg expansion in vitro.

Introduction

This protocol describes in vitro techniques to study the function of tissue-infiltrating macrophages isolated from cardiac allografts, according to their ability to modulate T-cell responses. Widely described in the literature, fluorescent cell-tracking dyes in combination with flow cytometry, are powerful tools to study the suppressive function of specific cell types in vitro and in vivo. Our protocol follows the carboxyfluorescein succinimidyl ester (CFSE) method for monitoring lymphocyte proliferation in vitro.

When a CFSE-labeled cell divides, its progeny acquires half the number of carboxyfluorescein....

Protocol

In this study, mice are housed in accordance with the United States Department of Agriculture guidelines and the recommendations of the Public Health Service Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals. All experimental techniques involving animal use were performed in accordance with Institutional Animal Care and Utilization Committee (IACUC)-approved protocols of the Mount Sinai School of Medicine.

1. Media Preparation

1. Prepare complete RPMI 1640 medium with 10% FBS and 1% pe.......

Discussion

This protocol describes the methods we used to immunocharacterize graft-infiltrating myeloid cell subsets in an experimental murine model of heart transplantation, which is also applicable to other tissues in different murine experimental models. Low-pressure cell sorting at 20 psi was the preferred method to isolate a good yield of pure cell subsets. Maintaining the purity of each myeloid subset is critical to establish conclusive results of the suppressive capacity between the different myeloid populations. However, ot.......

Materials

Name	Company	Catalog Number	Comments
RPMI 1640 Media	Life Technologies	11875119
10 % FBS	Life Technologies	26140-079
1000X 2-mercaptoethanol	Life Technologies	21985023
100X Pen/Strep	Life Technologies	15140122
100X L-glutamine	Life Technologies	25030081
100X Non Esential amino acids	Corning	25025039
1M HEPES buffer	Corning	25060CL
100mM Sodium Pyruvate	ThermoScientific	SH30239.01
Penicilin/Streptavidyn	ThermoScientific	15140122
Collagenese A	Roche	70381322
DPBS (w/o calcium&magnesium)	Corning	21031CV
70 micron Cell strainer	Fisher	22363548
ACK lysis buffer	Life Technologies	A10492-01
DAPI	Sigma	32670-5mg-F
CFSE-FITC	Invitrogen	C34554
Dynabeads Mouse T cell activator CD3/CD28	Life Technologies	11452D
96 well  U-bottom plate	Corning	353077
Antibodies:
anti-Ly6C-APC	eBioscience	175932-80
anti-Ly6G-Pe/Cy7	Biolegend	127617
anti-CD11b-Percp/Cy5.5	eBioscience	45011282
anti-CD45-APC/Cy7	eBioscience	47045182
anti-CD4-APC	eBioscience	17004181
anti-CD8-P/ Cy7	eBioscience	25008181
LSRII Flow Cytometer	BD Bioscience
FACSDiva Software	BD Bioscience
C57BL/6-Foxp3tm1Flv/J	The Jackson Laboratory	008374
C57BL/6	The Jackson Laboratory	000664
Balb/c	The Jackson Laboratory	000651