Name: retroviral transduction of bone marrow progenitor cells to generate t-cell receptor retrogenic mice
Uploaded: 2016-07-11T15:00:00
Description: Watch this Scientific Journal Video about Retroviral Transduction of Bone Marrow Progenitor Cells to Generate T-cell Receptor Retrogenic Mice at JoVE.com

This work was supported by grants from NIH (5K22A1119151-01 and 1R56DK104903-01) to M.L.B, Pilot/Feasibility Program of the Diabetes Research Center (P30-DK079638) at BCM, JDRF 1-FAC-2014-243-A-N APF, ADA 1-15-JF-07, AAI Careers in Immunology Fellowship to M.B., and The Robert and Janice McNair Foundation.

Ethics Statement: Every effort is made to keep animal discomfort or stress to a minimum during irradiation and tail vein injections. Mice are used as a source of cells in these experiments; as such there are no procedures or manipulations apart from euthanasia. Mice will be euthanized by CO2 inhalation followed by cervical dislocation to confirm death. This procedure is consistent with the recommendations of the Panel on Euthanasia of the American Veterinary Medical Association.
1. Prepar...

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In the protocol, we detail several critical steps to ensure optimal bone marrow health, transduction efficiency and reconstitution. First critical step is the generation and proper maintenance of the GP+E86 viral producer cells. Use early passage producer cell lines and maintain at 80% confluency or lower prior to use. When making fresh GP+E86 viral producer cells, ensure the 293T cells are early passage and growing in culture for 24 - 48 hr. Plating too many GP+E86 cells during the transduction step will lower viral tit...

T cell receptor (TCR) repertoire of humans and mice has been estimated at 1 x 108 and 2 x 106 unique TCRs respectively1,2. This large diversity allows T cells to recognize a vast array of antigen epitopes derived from self-peptides as well as from pathogens presented by the major histocompatibility complex (MHC) on antigen presenting cells (APCs). The subtle differences in the interactions of the TCRs with unique peptide-MHC complexes dictate whether a T cell will undergo apoptosis, anergy, activation, differentiation, cytokine production or cytotoxicity. However, due to the large TCR repertoire, analysis of how a specific TCR will respond to a particular antigen requires the use of single TCR systems.
Various TCR transgenic mice have been generated in order to study the function of a single TCR in an in vivo model 3-9. However, there are caveats to TCR transgenic mice including the cost, the length of time to generate a single transgenic mouse and the so called founder effect of random transgene insertion into germline DNA10. Therefore, relatively few TCR transgenic mice have been generated for any given antigen and the functional implications of high and low TCR affinity for the same epitope are rarely addressed. To address the need for a rapid approach to screen and study multiple TCRs individually or in combination, retrogenic (&#39;retro&#39; from retrovirus and &#39;genic&#39; from transgenic) mice have been utilized as an alternative to TCR transgenic mice11-13.
The 2A peptide consensus motif found within several viruses consist of an 2A-Asp-Val/Ile-Glut-X-Asn-Pro-Gly-2B-Pro, in which cleavage occurs between the glycine of the 2A and the proline of the 2B from cis-acting hydrolase activity, resulting in ribosomal skipping during translation10,14-16. For a detailed diagram depicting the cleavage of the various 2A peptides (F2A, E2A, T2A and P2A) please refer to references 10 - 12. In this manner, 2 cistrons (TCR alpha and TCR beta) can be linked resulting in stoichiometric translation in a single vector. Utilizing this approach, we are able to express and directly compare multiple antigen specific TCRs in vivo.

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		<tr>
			<td>DMEM, high glucose + glutamine</td>
			<td>Corning Cellgro</td>
			<td>10-013-CV</td>
			<td>Dulbecco&#39;s Modification of Eagle&#39;s Medium with 4.5 g/L glucose, L-glutamine &#38; sodium pyruvate</td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>FBS</td>
			<td>Atlanta Biological</td>
			<td>S11550</td>
			<td></td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>Trypsin-Versene</td>
			<td>Lonza</td>
			<td>17-161F</td>
			<td></td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>0.45 um syringe filter</td>
			<td>Thermo Scientific</td>
			<td>194-2545</td>
			<td></td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>polybrene</td>
			<td>Sigma</td>
			<td>H9268-10G</td>
			<td>Sterile Filtered in dH2O</td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>Ciprofloxacin&#160;</td>
			<td>VWR</td>
			<td>AAJ61970-06</td>
			<td></td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>5-fluorouracil (5-FU)</td>
			<td>VWR</td>
			<td>AAA13456-06</td>
			<td></td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>Sodium Pyruvate</td>
			<td>Corning Cellgro</td>
			<td>25-000-CI</td>
			<td></td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>MEM nonessential Amino Acids</td>
			<td>Corning Cellgro</td>
			<td>25-025-CI</td>
			<td></td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>HEPES 1M solution</td>
			<td>Corning Cellgro</td>
			<td>25-060-CI</td>
			<td></td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>2-Mercaptoethanol</td>
			<td>Gibco by Life Technologies</td>
			<td>21985-023</td>
			<td></td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>Pen/Strept</td>
			<td>Corning Cellgro</td>
			<td>30-002-CI</td>
			<td></td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>L-glutamine</td>
			<td>Corning Cellgro</td>
			<td>25-005-CI</td>
			<td></td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>150 mm tissue culture dishes</td>
			<td>Greiner Bio-one</td>
			<td>639160</td>
			<td></td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>Tisue culture-treated 6-well flat plate</td>
			<td>Greiner Bio-one</td>
			<td>657160</td>
			<td></td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>70 um nylon cell strainers</td>
			<td>Falcon</td>
			<td>352350</td>
			<td></td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>Mouse IL-3</td>
			<td>Invitrogen</td>
			<td>PMC0033</td>
			<td></td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>Human IL-6</td>
			<td>Invitrogen</td>
			<td>&#160;PHC0063</td>
			<td></td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>Mouse Stem Cell Factor</td>
			<td>Invitrogen</td>
			<td>PMC2113L</td>
			<td></td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>10x PBS</td>
			<td>Corning Cellgro</td>
			<td>46-D13-CM</td>
			<td></td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>HANKS Buffer</td>
			<td>Corning Cellgro</td>
			<td>21020147</td>
			<td></td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>BD 10 mL Syringe</td>
			<td>BD</td>
			<td>300912</td>
			<td></td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>BD 1 mL Syringe</td>
			<td>BD</td>
			<td>309659</td>
			<td></td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>27G x 1/2 BD Precision Glide Needle</td>
			<td>BD</td>
			<td>305109</td>
			<td></td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>30G x 1/2 BD Precision Glide Needle</td>
			<td>BD</td>
			<td>305106</td>
			<td></td>
		</tr>
	</tbody>
</table>

retroviral transduction of bone marrow progenitor cells to generate t-cell receptor retrogenic mice

T cell receptor (TCR) signaling is essential in the development and differentiation of T cells in the thymus and periphery, respectively. The vast array of TCRs proves studying a specific antigenic response difficult. Therefore, TCR transgenic mice were made to study positive and negative selection in the thymus as well as peripheral T cell activation, proliferation and tolerance. However, relatively few TCR transgenic mice have been generated specific to any given antigen. Thus, studies involving TCRs of varying affinities for the same antigenic peptide have been lacking. The generation of a new TCR transgenic line can take six or more months. Additionally, any specific backcrosses can take an additional six months. In order to allow faster generation and screening of multiple TCRs, a protocol for retroviral transduction of bone marrow was established with stoichiometric expression of the TCR&#945; and TCR&#946; chains and the generation of retrogenic mice. Each retrogenic mouse is essentially a founder, virtually negating a founder effect, while the length of time to generate a TCR retrogenic is cut from six months to approximately six weeks. Here we present a rapid and flexible alternative to TCR transgenic mice that can be expressed on any chosen background with any particular TCR.

Bone marrow transduction efficiency is checked at step 13.3 of the protocol before the bone marrow is injected into tail vein i.v. In the representative bone marrow transduction figure (Figure 1A), approximately 10-&#956;l of the harvested bone marrow was added to 100-&#956;l of PBS and analyzed for ametrine expression. Generally the percentage of fluorescent positive cells is between 25% and 70%, depending on the construct and retroviral titer. After 6 weeks bone marrow ...

Watch this Scientific Journal Video about Retroviral Transduction of Bone Marrow Progenitor Cells to Generate T-cell Receptor Retrogenic Mice at JoVE.com

Retroviral Transduction of Bone Marrow Progenitor Cells to Generate T-cell Receptor Retrogenic Mice

We present a rapid and flexible protocol for a single T cell receptor (TCR) retroviral-based in vivo expression system. Retroviral vectors are used to transduce bone marrow progenitor cells to study T cell development and function of a single TCR in vivo as an alternative to TCR transgenic mice.

T cell receptor (TCR) signaling is essential in the development and differentiation of T cells in the thymus and periphery, respectively.  The vast array ...

The goal of this procedure is to generate retrogenic mice to determine the in vivo function of multiple t-cell receptors. This is accomplished by utilizing a retroviral construct that encodes the alpha and beta chains of the t-cell receptor, linked by a 2A peptide consensus motif. This method can actually help answer key questions in the immunology field, by screening multiple TCRs specific for multiple antigens, you can actually determine their in vivo function.The main advantage of this technique is that once the retroviral construct is completed, the t-cell compartment of the retrogenic mice will be reconstituted approximately around seven weeks. Additionally, each retrogenic mouse is essentially a founder, so by analyzing multiple mice, the founder effect is eliminated. Demonstrating this part of the procedure will be Dr.Maria Bettini.Set up for the bone marrow extraction by placing sterile dissection scissors and forceps in the surgical area and by chilling dissection medium in a 50 milliliter conical tube on ice. After euthanizing the mouse and confirming death by cervical dislocation, use dissection scissors to cut up and under the pelvic girdle to remove it. Then cut back down along the femur to the tibia and carefully remove the femur, tibia and humerus.Transfer the bones into a dish of dissection medium in the tissue culture hood and use scissors and forceps to remove all surrounding tissue to obtain clean bones. Separate the bones by cutting at the joints, making sure to cut both ends off each bone. Then insert a 25 gauge needle attached to a 10 milliliter syringe containing dissection medium into a bone.Apply pressure and flush all bone marrow through a 70 micron strainer, resting in a 50 milliliter conical tube. Periodically, push the bone marrow through the 70 micron filter using the plunger of a one milliliter syringe and rinse the strainer with medium. Centrifuge the bone marrow single cell suspension at 300 times g for 10 minutes at four degrees celsius.Following the centrifugation, decant or aspirate the medium and resuspend each cell pellet in one milliliter of ammonium chloride based red blood cell lysis buffer. Incubate at room temperature for one minute. Next, quench the red cell lysis buffer by adding 10 milliliters of plating medium and then centrifuge as before.After removing the supernatant, resuspend the bone marrow in five milliliters of plating medium and perform a cell count using neubauer counting chamber. The yield should be approximately five to 10 times 10 to the sixth cells per mouse, but this can vary between strains. Add 30 milliliters of plating medium, supplemented with freshly thawed IL-3, IL-6 and SCF to 150 millimeter tissue culture plates.Then, add four times 10 to the seventh bone marrow cells to each plate and incubate over night at 37 degrees celsius with five percent carbon dioxide. Demonstrating this part of the procedure will be Thomas Lee. Next, plate three times 10 to the sixth retroviral producer cells in 150 millimeter plates containing 18 milliliters of plating medium.Incubate the retroviral producer cells overnight. The next day, use a 10 milliliter syringe and 0.45 micron filter to harvest and filter the retroviral supernatant from the producer plates. Carefully replace the removed retroviral supernatant with 18 milliliters of fresh plating medium.Supplement the filtered retroviral supernatant with IL-3, IL-6, MSCF and hexadimethrine bromide. Next, move on to harvest the bone marrow cells by first transferring the medium containing non-adherent cells into a sterile 50 milliliter tube. Then wash the plate vigorously with 10 milliliters of PBS and add this to the 50 milliliter conical tube.After centrifuging the cells at 300 times g for 10 minutes at four degrees celsius, decant the supernatant and then resuspend the cells in one to three milliliters of plating medium. After performing a cell count, place bone marrow cells into the soup. Plate this cell mixture at a volume of three milliliters per well in a six well tissue culture plate.Wrap the plates containing bone marrow cells in plastic wrap to minimize gas exchange and then spin the plates at 1, 000 times g for 60 minutes at 37 degrees celsius. After the spin in complete, remove the plastic wrap and place the plates in a 37 degree celsius carbon dioxide incubator for 24 hours. After 24 hours, collect fresh viral supernatant from the viral producer cell line.At this point, the cells should be well spaced with a defiant morphology. Next, carefully aspirate the top two milliliters of medium from each well of the six well plate containing the bone marrow cells. Avoid aspirating the bone marrow cells that are usually concentrated in the middle of the well.Add three milliliters of freshly supplemented viral supernatant to each well of the six well plate containing bone marrow cells. After wrapping the plates in plastic, as before, repeat the spin transduction, and then place the unwrapped plates in the tissue culture incubator. After 24 hours, on day three, remove and replace two milliliters of media from the wells.On day four, collect the bone marrow cells from the six well plate by vigorously washing with PBS and then collecting the cell suspension in a 50 milliliter tube. After centrifuging the cells at 300 times g for 10 minutes at four degrees celsius, decant the supernatant and resuspend the bone marrow in one milliliter of PBS plus 0.5 percent heat inactivated FBS. Place the tube containing the cells on ice.Then, after performing a cell count, resuspend the bone marrow in a sufficient volume of PBS plus 0.5 percent heat inactivated FBS, to inject a minimum of two times 10 to the sixth cells in a 200 to 300 microliter volume per mouse. Finally, with a micropipetter, take a 10 microliter sample of each bone marrow condition and add this to 100 microliters of PBS for analysis of transduction efficiency by flow cytometry. Transduction efficiency of bone marrow cells was analyzed based on the fluorescent marker ametrine.The left panel shows the forward and side scatter of bone marrow cells after five days in culture. The right panel is gated as ametry impositive and includes the transduced bone marrow cells. A successful bone marrow transduction will yield a percentage of fluorescent positive cells between 25 and 70 percent.This image shows t-cell receptor retrogenic t-cells in peripheral blood at six weeks post bone marrow reconstitution. After lysis of red blood cells, the remaining cells were stained for t-cell receptor beta. The right panel shows a representative analysis for ametrine expression and anti t-cell receptor beta.After watching this video, you should have a good understanding of to retrovirally transduce and culture bone marrow cells to regenerate retrogenic mice.

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Immunology and Infection

Transnuclear Mice with Pre-defined T Cell Receptor Specificities Against Toxoplasma gondii Obtained Via SCNT

Lymphocytes, such as T cells, undergo genetic V(D)J recombination, to generate a receptor with a certain specificity1. Mice transgenic for a rearranged antigen-specific T cell receptor (TCR) have been an indispensable tool to study T cell development and function. However, such TCRs are usually isolated from the relevant T cells after long-term culture often following repeated antigen stimulation, which unavoidably selects for T cells with high affinity. Random genomic integration of the TCR &alpha;- and &beta;-chain and expression from non-endogenous promoters can lead to variations in expression level and kinetics.
Epigenetic reprogramming via somatic cell nuclear transfer provides a tool to generate embryonic stem cells and mice from any cell of interest. Consequently, when SCNT is applied to T cells of known specificity, these genetic V(D)J rearrangements are transferred to the SCNT-embryonic stem cells (ESCs) and the mice derived from them, while epigenetic marks are reset. We have demonstrated that T cells with pre-defined specificities against Toxoplasma gondii can be used to generate mouse models that express the specific TCR from their endogenous loci, without experimentally introduced genetic modification. The relative ease and speed with which such transnuclear models can be obtained holds promise for the construction of other disease models.

Transnuclear Mice with Pre-defined T Cell Receptor Specificities Against Toxoplasma gondii Obtained Via SCNT

We demonstrate here that epigenetic reprogramming via Somatic Cell Nuclear Transfer (SCNT) can be used as a tool to generate mouse models with pre-defined T cell receptor (TCR) specificities. These transnuclear mice express the corresponding TCR from their endogenous locus under the control of the endogenous promoter.

Lymphocytes, such as T cells, undergo genetic V(D)J recombination, to generate a receptor with a certain specificity1. Mice transgenic for a rearranged ...

Retroviral Transduction of T-cell Receptors in Mouse T-cells

T-cell receptors (TCRs) play a central role in the immune system. TCRs on T-cell surfaces can specifically recognize peptide antigens presented by antigen presenting cells (APCs)1. This recognition leads to the activation of T-cells and a series of functional outcomes (e.g. cytokine production, killing of the target cells). Understanding the functional role of TCRs is critical to harness the power of the immune system to treat a variety of immunology related diseases (e.g. cancer or autoimmunity).
It is convenient to study TCRs in mouse models, which can be accomplished in several ways. Making TCR transgenic mouse models is costly and time-consuming and currently there are only a limited number of them available2-4. Alternatively, mice with antigen-specific T-cells can be generated by bone marrow chimera. This method also takes several weeks and requires expertise5. Retroviral transduction of TCRs into in vitro activated mouse T-cells is a quick and relatively easy method to obtain T-cells of desired peptide-MHC specificity. Antigen-specific T-cells can be generated in one week and used in any downstream applications. Studying transduced T-cells also has direct application to human immunotherapy, as adoptive transfer of human T-cells transduced with antigen-specific TCRs is an emerging strategy for cancer treatment6.
Here we present a protocol to retrovirally transduce TCRs into in vitro activated mouse T-cells. Both human and mouse TCR genes can be used. Retroviruses carrying specific TCR genes are generated and used to infect mouse T-cells activated with anti-CD3 and anti-CD28 antibodies. After in vitro expansion, transduced T-cells are analyzed by flow cytometry.

We present a protocol to produce antigen-specific mouse T-cells using retroviral transduction

T-cell receptors (TCRs) play a central role in the immune system. TCRs on T-cell surfaces can specifically recognize peptide antigens presented by antigen ...

Bone Marrow-derived Macrophage Production

Macrophages are critical components of the innate and adaptive immune responses, and they are the first line of defense against foreign invaders because of their powerful microbicidal activities. Macrophages are widely distributed throughout the body and are present in the lymphoid organs, liver, lungs, gastrointestinal tract, central nervous system, bone, and skin. Because of their repartition, they participate in a wide range of physiological and pathological processes. Macrophages are highly versatile cells that are able to recognize microenvironmental alterations and to maintain tissue homeostasis. Numerous pathogens have evolved mechanisms to use macrophages as Trojan horses to survive, replicate in, and infect both humans and animals and to propagate throughout the body. The recent explosion of interest in evolutionary, genetic, and biochemical aspects of host-pathogen interactions has renewed scientific attention regarding macrophages. Here, we describe a procedure to isolate and cultivate macrophages from murine bone marrow that will provide large numbers of macrophages for studying host-pathogen interactions as well as other processes.

Macrophages have long been recognized as a critical component of the innate and adaptive immune responses. The recent explosion of knowledge pertaining to evolutionary, genetic, and biochemical aspects of the interaction between macrophages and microbes has renewed scientific attention to macrophages. This article describes a method to differentiate macrophages from mouse bone marrow.

Macrophages are critical components of the innate and adaptive immune responses, and they are the first line of defense against foreign invaders because ...

Generating De Novo Antigen-specific Human T Cell Receptors by Retroviral Transduction of Centric Hemichain

T cell receptors (TCRs) are used clinically to direct the specificity of T cells to target tumors as a promising modality of immunotherapy. Therefore, cloning TCRs specific for various tumor-associated antigens has been the goal of many studies. To elicit an effective T cell response, the TCR must recognize the target antigen with optimal affinity. However, cloning such TCRs has been a challenge and many available TCRs possess sub-optimal affinity for the cognate antigen. In this protocol, we describe a method of cloning de novo high affinity antigen-specific TCRs using existing TCRs by exploiting hemichain centricity. It is known that for some TCRs, each TCR&#945; or TCR&#946; hemichain do not contribute equally to antigen recognition, and the dominant hemichain is referred to as the centric hemichain. We have shown that by pairing the centric hemichain with counter-chains differing from the original counter-chain, we are able to maintain the antigen specificity, while modulating its interaction strength for the cognate antigen. Thus, the therapeutic potential of a given TCR can be improved by optimizing the pairing between the centric and counter hemichains.

Generating De Novo Antigen-specific Human T Cell Receptors by Retroviral Transduction of Centric Hemichain

Herein we describe a novel method to generate antigen-specific T cell receptors (TCRs) by pairing the TCR&#945; or TCR&#946; of an existing TCR, possessing the antigen-specificity of interest, with complementary hemichain of the peripheral T cell receptor repertoire. The de novo generated TCRs retain antigen-specificity with varying affinity.

T cell receptors (TCRs) are used clinically to direct the specificity of T cells to target tumors as a promising modality of immunotherapy. Therefore, ...

Retroviral Transduction of Helper T Cells as a Genetic Approach to Study Mechanisms Controlling their Differentiation and Function

Helper T cell development and function must be tightly regulated to induce an appropriate immune response that eliminates specific pathogens yet prevents autoimmunity. Many approaches involving different model organisms have been utilized to understand the mechanisms controlling helper T cell development and function. However, studies using mouse models have proven to be highly informative due to the availability of genetic, cellular, and biochemical systems. One genetic approach in mice used by many labs involves retroviral transduction of primary helper T cells. This is a powerful approach due to its relative ease, making it accessible to almost any laboratory with basic skills in molecular biology and immunology. Therefore, multiple genes in wild type or mutant forms can readily be tested for function in helper T cells to understand their importance and mechanisms of action. We have optimized this approach and describe here the protocols for production of high titer retroviruses, isolation of primary murine helper T cells, and their transduction by retroviruses and differentiation toward the different helper subsets. Finally, the use of this approach is described in uncovering mechanisms utilized by microRNAs (miRNAs) to regulate pathways controlling helper T cell development and function.

Many experimental systems have been utilized to understand the mechanisms regulating T cell development and function in an immune response. Here a genetic approach using retroviral transduction is described, which is economic, time efficient, and most importantly, highly informative in identifying regulatory pathways.

Helper T cell development and function must be tightly regulated to induce an appropriate immune response that eliminates specific pathogens yet prevents ...

An In Vivo Mouse Model to Measure Na&#239;ve CD4 T Cell Activation, Proliferation and Th1 Differentiation Induced by Bone Marrow-derived Dendritic Cells

Quantification of na&#239;ve CD4 T cell activation, proliferation, and differentiation to T helper 1 (Th1) cells is a useful way to assess the role played by T cells in an immune response. This protocol describes the in vitro differentiation of bone marrow (BM) progenitors to obtain granulocyte macrophage colony-stimulating factor (GM-CSF) derived-dendritic cells (DCs). The protocol also describes the adoptive transfer of ovalbumin peptide (OVAp)-loaded GM-CSF-derived DCs and na&#239;ve CD4 T cells from OTII transgenic mice in order to analyze the in vivo activation, proliferation, and Th1 differentiation of the transferred CD4 T cells. This protocol circumvents the limitation of purely in vivo methods imposed by the inability to specifically manipulate or select the studied cell population. Moreover, this protocol allows studies in an in vivo environment, thus avoiding alterations to functional factors that may occur in vitro and including the influence of cell types and other factors only found in intact organs. The protocol is a useful tool for generating changes in DCs and T cells that modify adaptive immune responses, potentially providing important results to understand the origin or development of numerous immune associated diseases.

An &lt;em&gt;In Vivo&lt;/em&gt; Mouse Model to Measure Na&amp;#239;ve CD4 T Cell Activation, Proliferation and Th1 Differentiation Induced by Bone Marrow-derived Dendritic Cells

Here, we present a protocol for the in vivo determination of na&#239;ve CD4 T cell (T cell) activation, proliferation, and Th1 differentiation induced by GM-CSF bone marrow (BM)-derived dendritic cells (DCs). In addition, this protocol describes BM and T-cell isolation, DC generation, and DC and T-cell adoptive transfer.

Quantification of na&#239;ve CD4 T cell activation, proliferation, and differentiation to T helper 1 (Th1) cells is a useful way to assess the role played ...

Isolation of Lamina Propria Mononuclear Cells from Murine Colon Using Collagenase E

The intestine is the home to the largest number of immune cells in the body. The small and large intestinal immune systems police exposure to exogenous antigens and modulate responses to potent microbially derived immune stimuli. For this reason, the intestine is a major target site of immune dysregulation and inflammation in many diseases including but, not limited to inflammatory bowel diseases such as Crohn&#8217;s disease and ulcerative colitis, graft-versus-host disease (GVHD) after bone marrow transplantation (BMT), and many allergic and infectious conditions. Murine models of gastrointestinal inflammation and colitis are heavily used to study GI complications and to pre-clinically optimize strategies for prevention and treatment. Data gleaned from these models via isolation and phenotypic analysis of immune cells from the intestine is critical to further immune understanding that can be applied to ameliorate gastrointestinal and systemic inflammatory disorders. This report describes a highly effective protocol for the isolation of mononuclear cells (MNC) from the colon using a mixed silica-based density gradient interface. This method reproducibly isolates a significant number of viable leukocytes while minimizing contaminating debris, allowing subsequent immune phenotyping by flow cytometry or other methods.

The goal of this protocol is to isolate mononuclear cells that reside in the lamina propria of the colon by enzymatic digestion of the tissue using collagenase. This protocol allows for the efficient isolation of mononuclear cells resulting in a single cell suspension which in turn can be used for robust immunophenotyping.

The intestine is the home to the largest number of immune cells in the body. The small and large intestinal immune systems police exposure to exogenous ...

Bone Marrow Transplantation Platform to Investigate the Role of Dendritic Cells in Graft-versus-Host Disease

Allogeneic bone marrow transplantation (BMT) is an effective therapy for hematological malignancies due to the graft-versus-leukemia (GVL) effect to eradicate tumors. However, its application is limited by the development of graft-versus-host disease (GVHD), a major complication of BMT. GVHD is evoked when T-cells in the donor grafts recognizealloantigen expressed by recipient cells and mount unwanted immunological attacks against recipient healthy tissues. Thus, traditional therapies are designed to suppress donor T-cell alloreactivity. However, these approaches substantially impair the GVL effect so that the recipient&#39;s survival is not improved. Understanding the effects of therapeutic approaches on BMT, GVL, and GVHD, is thus essential. Due to the antigen-presenting and cytokine-secreting capacities to stimulate donor T-cells, recipient dendritic cells (DCs) play a significant role in the induction of GVHD. Therefore, targeting recipient DCs becomes a potential approach for controlling GVHD. This work provides a description of a novel BMT platform to investigate how host DCs regulate GVH and GVL responses after transplantation. Also presented is an effective BMT model to study the biology of GVHD and GVL after transplantation.

Graft-versus-host disease is a major complication after allogeneic bone marrow transplantation. Dendritic cells play a critical role in the pathogenesis of graft-versus-host disease. The current article describes a novel bone marrow transplantation platform to investigate the role of dendritic cells in the development of graft-versus-host disease and the graft-versus-leukemia effect.

Allogeneic bone marrow transplantation (BMT) is an effective therapy for hematological malignancies due to the graft-versus-leukemia (GVL) effect to ...

Retroviral Overexpression of CXCR4 on Murine B-1a Cells and Adoptive Transfer for Targeted B-1a Cell Migration to the Bone Marrow and IgM Production

As cell function is influenced by niche-specific factors in the cellular microenvironment, methods to dissect cell localization and migration can provide further insight on cell function. B-1a cells are a unique B cell subset in mice that produce protective natural IgM antibodies against oxidation-specific epitopes that arise during health and disease. B-1a cell IgM production differs depending on B-1a cell location, and therefore it becomes useful from a therapeutic standpoint to target B-1a localization to niches supportive of high antibody production. Here we describe a method to target B-1a cell migration to the bone marrow by retroviral-mediated overexpression of the C-X-C motif chemokine receptor 4 (CXCR4). Gene induction in primary murine B cells can be challenging and typically yields low transfection efficiencies of 10-20% depending on technique. Here we demonstrate that retroviral transduction of primary murine B-1a cells results in 30-40% transduction efficiency. This method utilizes adoptive cell transfer of transduced B-1a cells into B cell-deficient recipient mice so that donor B-1a cell migration and localization can be visualized. This protocol can be modified for other retroviral constructs and can be used in diverse functional assays post-adoptive transfer, including analysis of donor cell or host cell phenotype and function, or analysis of soluble factors secreted post B-1a cell transfer. The use of distinct donor and recipient mice differentiated by CD45.1 and CD45.2 allotype and the presence of a GFP reporter within the retroviral plasmid could also enable detection of donor cells in other, immune-sufficient mouse models containing endogenous B cell populations.

Here we describe a method for retroviral overexpression and adoptive transfer of murine B-1a cells to examine in vivo B-1a cell migration and localization. This protocol can be extended for diverse downstream functional assays including quantification of donor B-1a cell localization or analysis of donor cell-derived secreted factors post-adoptive transfer.

As cell function is influenced by niche-specific factors in the cellular microenvironment, methods to dissect cell localization and migration can provide ...

Bone Marrow Transplantation Procedures in Mice to Study Clonal Hematopoiesis

Clonal hematopoiesis is a prevalent age-associated condition that results from the accumulation of somatic mutations in hematopoietic stem and progenitor cells (HSPCs). Mutations in driver genes, that confer cellular fitness, can lead to the development of expanding HSPC clones that increasingly give rise to progeny leukocytes harboring the somatic mutation. Because clonal hematopoiesis has been associated with heart disease, stroke, and mortality, the development of experimental systems that model these processes is key to understanding the mechanisms that underly this new risk factor. Bone marrow transplantation procedures involving myeloablative conditioning in mice, such as total-body irradiation (TBI), are commonly employed to study the role of immune cells in cardiovascular diseases. However, simultaneous damage to the bone marrow niche and other sites of interest, such as the heart and brain, is unavoidable with these procedures. Thus, our lab has developed two alternative methods to minimize or avoid possible side effects caused by TBI: 1) bone marrow transplantation with irradiation shielding and 2) adoptive BMT to non-conditioned mice. In shielded organs, the local environment is preserved allowing for the analysis of clonal hematopoiesis while the function of resident immune cells is unperturbed. In contrast, the adoptive BMT to non-conditioned mice has the additional advantage that both the local environments of the organs and the hematopoietic niche are preserved. Here, we compare three different hematopoietic cell reconstitution approaches and discuss their strengths and limitations for studies of clonal hematopoiesis in cardiovascular disease.

We describe three methods of bone marrow transplantation (BMT): BMT with total-body irradiation, BMT with shielded irradiation, and BMT method with no pre-conditioning (adoptive BMT) for the study of clonal hematopoiesis in mouse models.

Clonal hematopoiesis is a prevalent age-associated condition that results from the accumulation of somatic mutations in hematopoietic stem and progenitor ...