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Live imaging of lysosomal exocytosis on micropatterned cells allows a spatial quantification of this process. Morphology normalization using micropatterns is an outstanding tool to uncover general rules about the spatial distribution of cellular processes.
Live imaging of the pHluorin tagged Soluble N-ethylmaleimide-sensitive-factor Attachment protein REceptor (v-SNARE) Vesicle-associated membrane protein 7 (VAMP7) by total internal reflection fluorescence microscopy (TIRFM) is a straightforward way to explore secretion from the lysosomal compartment. Taking advantage of cell culture on micropatterned surfaces to normalize cell shape, a variety of statistical tools were employed to perform a spatial analysis of secretory patterns. Using Ripley’s K function and a statistical test based on the nearest neighbor distance (NND), we confirmed that secretion from lysosomes is not a random process but shows significant clustering. Of note, our analysis revealed that exocytosis events are also clustered in nonadhesion areas, indicating that adhesion molecules are not the only structures that can induce secretory hot spots at the plasma membrane. Still, we found that cell adhesion enhances clustering. In addition to precisely defined adhesive and nonadhesive areas, the circular geometry of these micropatterns allows the use of polar coordinates, simplifying analyses. We used Kernel Density Estimation (KDE) and the cumulative distribution function on polar coordinates of exocytosis events to identify enriched areas of exocytosis. In ring-shaped micropattern cells, clustering occurred at the border between the adhesive and nonadhesive areas. Our analysis illustrates how statistical tools can be employed to investigate spatial distributions of diverse biological processes.
Exocytosis is a universal cellular process in which a vesicle fuses with the plasma membrane and releases its content. The vesicle can either fuse totally with the plasma membrane (full fusion) or create a fusion pore that stays open during a limited time (kiss-and-run)1. For instance, newly synthesized proteins are released into the extracellular medium from vesicles that come from the Golgi complex. This biosynthetic, anterograde pathway is primordial, especially in multicellular organisms, to secrete signaling peptides (e.g., hormones, neurotransmitters) and extracellular matrix components (e.g., collagen), as well as to traffic transmembrane proteins to the plasma membrane. Additionally, secretions can occur from different endosomes: 1) recycling endosomes in order to reuse transmembrane proteins; 2) multivesicular bodies (MVBs) to release exosomes; and 3) lysosomes for the release of proteolytic enzymes. Endosomal secretion has been shown to be important for neurite outgrowth, pseudopodia formation, plasma membrane repair, and ATP-dependent signaling2.
To study exocytosis at the single cell level, several techniques have been employed. Patch-clamp allows for the detection of single exocytosis events with a high temporal resolution in a wide variety of living cells3. However, this method does not provide information on the localization of exocytosis events, nor from which compartment it occurs. Electron microscopy allows direct visualization of exocytic events with high spatial resolution, and in combination with immunolabeling provides information about the specificity of the compartments and molecules involved. A disadvantage of this approach is the lack of information on the dynamics of the process, as well as its inability to perform high-throughput studies. Light microscopy approaches such as total internal reflection fluorescence microscopy (TIRFM), which exploits the evanescent field to illuminate fluorophores at the vicinity of the coverslip (100 nm), provides good temporal and spatial resolution to study exocytosis events. However, this method is only compatible with adherent cells and can only be applied to the ventral/inferior part of cells.
Of note, the plasma membrane reveals significant heterogeneity based on adhesive complexes that are present only in restricted areas. This heterogeneity restricts, for instance, the uptake of different ligands4. Similarly, it has recently been reported that secretion from the Golgi complex is concentrated at “hot spots” in the plasma membrane5. Moreover, it is known that certain cargos are secreted through focal-adhesion-associated exocytosis6. Thus, special attention should be paid to the question of whether exocytosis events are randomly distributed in space, or whether they are concentrated at specific areas of the plasma membrane. Several statistical tools based on Ripley’s K function have been proposed to explore these questions7,8,9. Our approach combines these tools with micropatterning to control cell shape and plasma membrane heterogeneity. In addition to providing a means to distinguish between adhesive and nonadhesive areas, this technique also allows comparison across different cells and conditions and increases the power of statistical analyses.
Here we employ a variety of statistical tools to study the spatial distribution of exocytosis events from the lysosomal compartment monitored by TIRFM live cell imaging of VAMP7-pHluorin in ring-shaped micropattern-normalized hTert-RPE1 cells. It was confirmed that secretion from lysosomes is not a random process8,9 and that exocytosis events exhibit clustering. Of note, we found that exocytosis events are also clustered in nonadhesive areas, indicating that adhesion molecules are not the only structures that can induce secretory hot spots at the plasma membrane. Nevertheless, cell adhesion did enhance clustering. Consistently, our analysis identified enriched areas of exocytosis that were located at the border between the adhesive and nonadhesive areas.
1. Preparation of micropatterned cells
2. Acquisition of exocytosis data
3. Single cell spatial analysis
The spatiotemporal characteristics of exocytosis events were analyzed from lysosomes visualized by VAMP7-pHluorin10,11 in hTert-RPE1 cells. hTert-RPE1 cells are nontransformed cells that adopt well to micropatterning and have been extensively used in previous micropattern-based studies4,14. VAMP7 is a lysosomal v-SNARE15 that was tagged with the super ecliptic pHluorin at its N-ter...
We monitored exocytosis events from the lysosomal compartment by TIRFM live cell imaging of VAMP7-pHluorin in ring-shaped micropattern-normalized cells and performed a rigorous statistical analysis of the spatial parameters of exocytosis events. Employing the transformed Ripley’s K function and a statistical test based on the nearest neighbor distance, we confirmed that secretion from lysosomes is not a random process8,9. Both statistical analyses convincin...
The authors have nothing to disclose.
We greatly acknowledge Thierry Galli (Center of Psychiatry and Neurosciences, INSERM) for providing the VAMP7-pHluorin plasmid. We thank Tarn Duong for advice on statistical analysis and members of the GOUD laboratory for fruitful discussions. The authors greatly acknowledge the Cell and Tissue Imaging Facility (PICT-IBiSA @Burg, PICT-EM @Burg and PICT-IBiSA @Pasteur) and Nikon Imaging Center, Institut Curie (Paris), member of the French National Research Infrastructure France-BioImaging (ANR10-INBS-04). H.L. was supported by the Association pour la Recherche sur le Cancer (ARC) and P.M. received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No 666003. This work was supported by grants from INFECT-ERA (ANR-14-IFEC-0002-04), the Labex CelTisPhyBio (ANR-10-LBX-0038) and Idex Paris Sciences et Lettres (ANR-10-IDEX-0001-02 PSL), as well as the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique and Institut Curie.
Name | Company | Catalog Number | Comments |
Chamlide Magnetic Chamber | Chamlide | ||
DMEM/F12 | Gibco | 21041-025 | |
Fibrinogen | Molecular Probes, Invitrogen | F35200 | |
Fibronectin bovine plasma | Sigma | F1141 | |
HEPES (1M) | Gibco | 15630-056 | |
hTert RPE1 cell line | https://www.atcc.org | ||
ImageJ | http://rsbweb.nih.gov/ij/ | n/a | Authored by W. Rasband, NIH/NIMH |
JetPRIME Transfection reagent | Polyplus | 114-07 | |
Penicilin/Streptomycin | Gibco | 15140-122 | |
Photomask | Delta Mask | ||
PLL-g-PEG solution | Surface Solutions | PLL(20)-g[3.5]- PEG(2) | |
R Software | https://www.r-project.org/ | n/a | |
Trypsin (TrypLE Express 1X) | Gibco | 12605-010 | |
UV ozone oven | Jelight Company Inc | 342-220 | |
VAMP7-pHFluorin plasmid | n/a | n/a | Paper reference :http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=Role+of+HRB+in+clathrin-dependent+endocytosis. J Biol Chem. 2008 Dec 5;283(49):34365-73. doi: 10.1074/jbc.M804587200. Role of HRB in clathrin-dependent endocytosis. Chaineau M, Danglot L, Proux-Gillardeaux V, Galli T. |
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