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* These authors contributed equally
Here, an easy-to-follow method to culture primary porcine retinal pigment epithelial cells in vitro is presented.
The retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) is a monolayer of polarized pigmented epithelial cells, located between the choroid and neuroretina in the retina. Multiple functions, including phagocytosis, nutrient/metabolite transportation, vitamin A metabolism, etc., are conducted by the RPE on a daily basis. RPE cells are terminally differentiated epithelial cells with little or no regenerative capacity. Loss of RPE cells results in multiple eye diseases leading to visual impairment, such as age-related macular degeneration. Therefore, the establishment of an in vitro culture model of primary RPE cells, which more closely resembles the RPE in vivo than cell lines, is critical for the characteristic and mechanistic studies of RPE cells. Considering the fact that the source of human eyeballs is limited, we create a protocol to culture primary porcine RPE cells. By using this protocol, RPE cells can be easily dissociated from adult porcine eyeballs. Subsequently, these dissociated cells attach to culture dishes/inserts, proliferate to form a confluent monolayer, and quickly re-establish key features of epithelial tissue in vivo within 2 wks. By qRT-PCR, it is demonstrated that primary porcine RPE cells express multiple signature genes at comparable levels with native RPE tissue, while the expressions of most of these genes are lost/highly reduced in human RPE-like cells, ARPE-19. Moreover, the immunofluorescence staining shows the distribution of tight junction, tissue polarity, and cytoskeleton proteins, as well as the presence of RPE65, an isomerase critical for vitamin A metabolism, in cultured primary cells. Altogether, we have developed an easy-to-follow approach to culture primary porcine RPE cells with high purity and native RPE features, which could serve as a good model to understand RPE physiology, study cell toxicities, and facilitate drug screenings.
The retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) is located between photoreceptors and choriocapillaris in the outer layer of the retina1 with multiple functions, including forming the blood-retinal barrier, transporting and exchanging nutrients and retinal metabolites, recycling vitamin A to maintain a normal visual cycle, and phagocytosis and clearance of shed photoreceptor outer segments (POSs)2,3. Since POSs require constant self-renewal to generate vision, the RPE cells need to continuously engulf detached POSs to maintain retinal homeostasis4. Therefore, RPE dysfunction results in many blinding eye diseases, such as age-related macular degeneration (AMD)4, retinitis pigmentosa (RP)5, Leber congenital amaurosis6, diabetic retinopathy7, etc. Till now, the exact pathogenesis of most of these diseases remains elusive. As a result, RPE cell culture is established to study RPE cell biology, pathological changes, and underlying mechanisms.
As the simplest model to study cell biology, the culture of RPE cells was started as early as the 1920s8. Although ARPE-19 is widely used as RPE cells, loss of pigmentation, cobblestone morphology, and, especially, the barrier functions in this cell line raise lots of concerns9. In comparison, the culture of primary human RPE cells offers a more realistic scenario for physiological and pathological studies9. However, the relatively limited availability restricts their usage and ethical issues always exist. In addition, several groups used mouse models to culture RPE cells. However, the size of the mouse eye is small, and a single culture usually requires many mice, which is not convenient9. Recently, scientists have developed new methods to use human embryonic stem cells or induced pluripotent stem cells to derive RPE cells. Although this technique has particular potential for the treatment of inherited RPE disorders, it is time-consuming and usually requires several months to generate mature RPE cells10. To overcome these problems, here we introduce an easy-to-follow protocol to isolate and culture high-purity RPE cells in the laboratory routinely. Under suitable culture conditions, these cells can display typical RPE functions and exhibit typical RPE morphologies. Therefore, this culture method can provide a good model to understand RPE physiology, study cytotoxicity, investigate pathological mechanisms of related ocular diseases, and conduct drug screenings.
The use of experimental animals complied with the regulations of the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology (ARVO) and was approved by the Ethics Committee of Experimental Animal Management of Xiamen University.
1. Preparation of experimental surgical devices, tissue digestion enzyme, and cell culture buffer
2. Dissection of porcine eyeball RPE cells
3. Isolation and culture of porcine eyeball RPE cells
4. Characterization of primary porcine RPE cells
The primary porcine RPE (pRPE) cells were cultured in DMEM/Basic media with 10% FBS, and cell morphology under light microscope was photographed at 2 days (Figure 2A), 6 days (Figure 2B) and 10 days (Figure 2C) after seeding. After 1 wk, a confluent monolayer of pigmented pRPE cells with cobblestone morphologies was observed.
To better characterize the primary pRPE cells, primary human RPE cells (hRPE) at...
Here, a detailed and optimized protocol for the isolation, culture, and characterization of RPE cells from porcine eyeballs, which generates a good model for in vitro characterization of RPE cells and RPE-related disorder studies has been described. Methods for the isolation of the RPE from human, mouse, and rat eyes have been described previously23,24,25. However, it is difficult to obtain human eyeballs in some labora...
All the authors disclosed that there are no conflicts of interest.
All the authors declare no competing financial interests.
The authors would like to show their gratitude and respect to all animals contributing their cells in this study. This study was supported in part by grants from the National Key R&D Program of China (2019YFA0111200, Yi Liao & Yuan Gao and Grant nos. 2018YFA0107301, Wei Li). The authors thank Jingru Huang and Xiang You from Central Lab, School of Medicine, Xiamen University for technical support in confocal imaging.
Name | Company | Catalog Number | Comments |
ARPE-19 cells | CCTCC | GDC0323 | |
Bovine serum albumin | Yeasen | 36101ES60 | |
Confocal microscopy | Zeiss | LSM 880 with Airyscan | |
ChemiDoc Touch | Bio-Rad | 1708370 | |
Cell scraper | Sangon | F619301 | |
10 cm culture dish | NEST | 121621EH01 | |
12-well culture plate | NEST | 29821075P | |
DMEM F12 Medium | Gibco | C11330500BT | |
DMEM basic Medium | Gibco | C11995500BT | |
EVOM2 | World Precision Instruments | EVOM2 | For TER measurement |
Fetal bovine serum | ExCell Bio | FSP500 | |
Goat anti-Rabbit IgG (H+L) Highly Cross-Adsorbed Secondary Antibody, Alexa Fluor 488 | ThermoFisher Scientific | A-11034 | |
Goat anti-Rabbit IgG (H+L) Cross-Adsorbed Secondary Antibody, Alexa Fluor 594 | ThermoFisher Scientific | A-11012 | |
Goat anti Mouse IgG (H/L):HRP | Bio-Rad | 0300-0108P | |
Goat anti Rabbit IgG (H/L):HRP | Bio-Rad | 5196-2504 | |
hydrocortisone | MCE | HY-N0583/CS-2226 | |
Hoechst 33342 solution (20 mM) | ThermoFisher Scientific | 62249 | |
LightCycler 96 Instrument | Roche | 5815916001 | |
Liothyronine | MCE | HY-A0070A/CS-4141 | |
laminin | Sigma-Aldrich | L2020-1MG | |
MEM(1X)+GlutaMAX Medium | Gibco | 10566-016 | |
MEM NEAA(100X) | Gibco | 11140-050 | |
Millex-GP syringe filter unit | Millipore | SLGPR33RB | |
N1 | Sigma-Aldrich | SLCF4683 | |
NcmECL Ultra | New Cell&Molecular Biotech | P10300 | |
Non-fat Powdered Milk | Solarbio | D8340 | |
Nicotinamide | SparkJade | SJ-MV0061 | |
Na+-K+ ATPase antibody | Abcam | ab76020 | Recognize both human and porcine proteins |
PAGE Gel Fast Preparation Kit(10%) | Epizyme | PG112 | |
primary Human RPE cells | - | - | Generous gift from Shoubi Wang lab |
Pierce BCA Protein Assay Kit | ThermoFisher Scientific | 23225 | |
Prism | GraphPad by Dotmatics | version 8.0 | |
Protease Inhibitor Cocktails | APExBIO | K1024 | |
PRE65 antibody | Proteintech | 17939-1-AP | Recognize both human and porcine proteins |
PEDF antibody | Santa Cruz Biotechnology | sc-390172 | Recognize both human and porcine proteins |
100 x penicillin/streptomycin | Biological Industries | 03-031-1BCS | |
Phosphate buffered saline (PBS) | RARBIO | RA-9005 | |
ReverTra Ace qPCR RT Master Mix | Toyobo | FSQ-201 | |
RIPA buffer | ThermoFisher Scientific | 89900 | |
15 mL sterile centrifuge tubes | NEST | 601052 | |
50 mL sterile centrifuge tubes | NEST | 602052 | |
0.25% Trypsin-EDTA | Gibco | 25200-056 | |
Taurine | Damas-beta | 107-35-7 | |
Trizol | Thermo-Fisher | 15596026 | RNA extraction solution |
TB Green Fast qPCR Mix | Takara | RR430A | |
12-well transwell inserts | Labselect | 14212 | |
VEGF antibody | Proteintech | 19003-1-AP | Recognize both human and porcine proteins |
VEGF ELISA kit | Novusbio | VAL106 | |
ZO-1 antibody | ABclonal | A0659 | Recognize both human and porcine proteins |
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