Identification, Isolation, and Characterization of Fibro-Adipogenic Progenitors (FAPs) and Myogenic Progenitors (MPs) in Skeletal Muscle in the Rat

Summary

This protocol outlines a method to isolate Fibro-adipogenic progenitors (FAPs) and myogenic progenitors (MPs) from rat skeletal muscle. Utilization of the rat in muscle injury models provides increased tissue availability from atrophic muscle for the analysis and a larger repertoire of validated methods to assess muscle strength and gait in free-moving animals.

Abstract

Fibro-adipogenic Progenitors (FAPs) are resident interstitial cells in skeletal muscle that, together with myogenic progenitors (MPs), play a key role in muscle homeostasis, injury, and repair. Current protocols for FAPs identification and isolation use flow cytometry/fluorescence-activated cell sorting (FACS) and studies evaluating their function in vivo to date have been undertaken exclusively in mice. The larger inherent size of the rat allows for a more comprehensive analysis of FAPs in skeletal muscle injury models, especially in severely atrophic muscle or when investigators require substantial tissue mass to conduct multiple downstream assays. The rat additionally provides a larger selection of muscle functional assays that do not require animal sedation or sacrifice, thus minimizing morbidity and animal use by enabling serial assessments. The flow cytometry/FACS protocols optimized for mice are species specific, notably restricted by the characteristics of commercially available antibodies. They have not been optimized for separating FAPs from rat or highly fibrotic muscle. A flow cytometry/FACS protocol for the identification and isolation of FAPs and MPs from both healthy and denervated rat skeletal muscle was developed, relying on the differential expression of surface markers CD31, CD45, Sca-1, and VCAM-1. As rat-specific, flow cytometry-validated primary antibodies are severely limited, in-house conjugation of the antibody targeting Sca-1 was performed. Using this protocol, successful Sca-1 conjugation was confirmed, and flow cytometric identification of FAPs and MPs was validated by cell culture and immunostaining of FACS-isolated FAPs and MPs. Finally, we report a novel FAPs time-course in a prolonged (14 week) rat denervation model. This method provides the investigators the ability to study FAPs in a novel animal model.

Introduction

Fibro-adipogenic progenitor cells (FAPs) are a population of resident multipotent progenitor cells in skeletal muscle that play a critical role in muscle homeostasis, repair, and regeneration, and conversely, also mediate pathologic responses to muscle injury. As the name suggests, FAPs were originally identified as a progenitor population with the potential to differentiate into fibroblasts and adipocytes¹ and were purported to be the key mediators of fibro-fatty infiltration of skeletal muscle in chronic injury and disease. Further study revealed that FAPs are additionally capable of osteogenesis and chondrogenesis²

Protocol

Investigators conducting this protocol must receive permission from their local animal ethics board/care committee. All animal work was approved by the St. Michael's Hospital Unity Health Toronto Animal Care Committee (ACC #918) and was conducted in accordance with the guidelines set forth by the Canadian Council on Animal Care (CCAC). A schematic of the flow cytometry protocol is shown in Figure 1. If the downstream application is FACS and subsequent cell culture, all steps should be co.......

Discussion

An optimized, validated FAPs isolation protocol for rat muscle is essential for researchers who wish to study injury models that are not feasible in the mouse for biologic or technical reasons. For example, mice are not an optimal animal model in which to study chronic local, or neurodegenerative injuries such as long-term denervation. Biologically, the short lifespan and rapid aging of mice make it difficult to accurately delineate the muscle sequalae due to denervation from the confounding factor of aging. From a techn.......

Materials

Name	Company	Catalog Number	Comments
5 mL Polypropylene Round-Bottom Tube	Falcon	352063
5 mL Polystyrene Round-Bottom Tube with Cell-Strainer Cap	Falcon	352235
10 cm cell culture dishes	Sarstedt	83.3902
12-well cell culture plate	ThermoFisher	130185
12 mm glass coverslips, No.2	VWR	89015-724
10 mL Syringe	Beckton Dickenson	302995
15 mL centrifuge tubes	FroggaBio	91014
20 gauge needle	Beckton Dickenson	305176
25mL Serological pipette	Sarstedt	86.1685.001
40µm cell strainer	Fisher Scientific	22363547
50mL centrifuge tubes	FroggaBio	TB50
AbC Total Antibody Compensation Beads	ThermoFisher	A10497
Ammonium Chloride, Reagent Grade	Bioshop	AMC303.500
APC Conjugation Kit, 50-100µg	Biotium	92307
Aquatex Aqueous Mounting Medium	Merck	108562
Biolaminin 411 LN	Biolamina	LN411
Bovine Serum Albumin (BSA)	Bioshop	ALB001
Calcium Chloride	Bioshop	CCL444.500
Collagenase Type II	Gibco	17101015
CountBright Plus Absolute Counting Beads	ThermoFisher	C36995
Dexamethasone	Millipore Sigma	D4902
Dispase	Gibco	17105041
Dulbecco’s Modified Eagle Medium (DMEM) (1X)	Gibco	11995-065	(+)4.5 g/L D-Glucose (+)L-Glutamine (+)110 mg/L Sodium Pyruvate
EDTA	FisherScientific	S311
FACSClean Solution	Beckton Dickenson	340345
FACSDiva Software	Beckton Dickenson	--
FACSRinse Solution	Beckton Dickenson	340346
Fetal Bovine Serum	Sigma	F1051
Flow Cytometry Sheath Fluid	Beckton Dickenson	342003
FlowJo Software	Beckton Dickenson	--
Fluorescent Mounting Medium	Dako	S302380-2
Goat anti-mouse Alexa Fluor 555 secondary antibody	Invitrogen	A21424
Goat anti-rabbit Alexa Fluor 488 secondary antibody	Invitrogen	A11008
Goat anti-rabbit Alexa Fluor 555 secondary antibody	Invitrogen	A21429
Goat Serum	Gibco	16210-064
Ham's F10 Media	ThermoFisher	11550043	(+) Phenol Red (+) L-Glutamine (-) HEPES
Hank’s Balanced Salt Solution (HBSS) (1X)	Multicell	311-513-CL
Heat Inactivated Horse Serum	Gibco	26050-088
Hemocytometer	Reichert	N/A
HEPES, minimum 99.5% titration	Sigma	H3375
Horse Serum	ThermoFisher	16050130
Human Transforming Growth Factor β1 (hTGF-β1)	Cell Signaling	8915LF
Humulin R	Lilly	HI0210
IBMX	Millipore Sigma	I5879	Also known as 3-Isobutyl-1-methylxanthine
Isopropanol	Sigma	I9516	Also known as 2-propanol
Lewis Rat, Female	Charles River Kingston	004 (Strain Code)	200-250 grams used
LSRFortessa X-20 Benchtop Cytometer	Beckton Dickenson	--
Microcentrifuge	Eppendorf	EP-5417R
MoFlo XDP Cell Sorter	Beckman Coulter	--
Mouse Anti-CD31::FITC Antibody	Abcam	ab33858	Clone TLD-3A12
Mouse Anti-CD45::FITC Antibody	Biolegend	202205	Clone OX-1
Mouse Anti-CD106::PE Antibody	Biolegend	200403	Also known as VCAM-1
Mouse Anti-MHC Antibody	Developmental Studies Hybridoma Bank (DSHB)	N/A	Also known as MF20
Mouse Anti-Pax7 Antibody	Developmental Studies Hybridoma Bank (DSHB)	N/A
Neutral Buffered Formalin, 10 %	Sigma	HT501128
Oil Red O	Millipore Sigma	O0625
PE-Cy7 Conjugation Kit	Abcam	ab102903
Penicillin-Streptomycin	Sigma	P4333
Phosphate Buffered Saline, pH 7.4 (1X)	Gibco	10010-023	(-)Calcium Chloride (-)Magnesium Chloride
Potassium Bicarbonate, Reagent Grade	Bioshop	PBC401.250
Rabbit Anti-Fibroblast Specific Protein 1 (FSP-1) Antibody	Invitrogen	MA5-32347	FSP-1 also known as S100A4
Rabbit Anti-Integrin-a7 Antibody	Abcam	ab203254
Rabbit Anti-Laminin Antibody	Sigma	L9393
Rabbit Anti-Perilipin-1 Antibody	Abcam	ab3526
Rabbit Anti-Sca-1 Antibody	Millipore Sigma	AB4336
Rabbit Recombinant Anti-Collagen Type I Antibody	Abcam	ab260043	Also known as Col1a1
Rabbit Recombinant Anti-PDGFR Alpha Antibody	Abcam	ab203491
Recombinant Human FGF-basic	Gibco	PHG0266
Sodium Azide	Sigma	S2002
Triton-X-100	Fisher Scientific	BP151
Troglitazone	Millipore Sigma	T2573
Tween-20	Bioshop	TWN510