Name: Characterization of the Lipofuscin-Like Granule Spectrum and Composition
Uploaded: 2023-04-14T14:30:00
Description: Watch this Scientific Journal Video about Characterization of the Lipofuscin-Like Granule Spectrum and Composition at JoVE.com

The video details a laboratory protocol for isolating and analyzing lipofuscin-loaded retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) cultures using transwell membranes. It involves microscopy techniques, cutting membranes, and employing fluorophores for detecting antigens, allowing for ratiometric imaging of autofluorescence and differentiation between signals for cellular analysis.

characterization of the lipofuscin-like granule spectrum and composition

レチナール色素上皮食作用とリポフスチン蓄積の定量化

The retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) provides critical support for overlying photoreceptors, including the daily uptake and degradation of photoreceptor outer segment tips or fragments (throughout this protocol, the abbreviation OS stands for OS tips or fragments rather than whole outer segments). This daily uptake in the post-mitotic RPE eventually overloads phagolysosomal capacity and leads to the buildup of undigestible, autofluorescent intracellular material, termed lipofuscin. Interestingly, several studies have also demonstrated that RPE lipofuscin can accumulate without OS phagocytosis1,2. Lipofuscin has many components, including cross-linked adducts derived from visual cycle retinoids, and can occupy nearly 20% of RPE cell volume for those over the age of 803.
Whether lipofuscin is toxic has been hotly debated. Stargardt&#39;s disease is an autosomal recessive degeneration of the photoreceptors and RPE in which a mutation in ABCA4 triggers improper processing of visual cycle retinoids contained within photoreceptor outer segments. Improper retinoid processing leads to aberrant cross-linking and formation of bis-retinoid species, including the bis-retinoid N-retinylidene-N-retinylethanolamine (A2E). Studies have demonstrated multiple mechanisms for A2E toxicity4,5. Lipofuscin contributes to fundus autofluorescence signals during clinical imaging, and both Stargardt&#39;s patients and animal models display increased fundus autofluorescence prior to retinal degeneration, suggesting a correlation between lipofuscin levels and toxicity6,7. However, with age, lipofuscin accumulates in all humans without triggering an RPE degeneration. Further, in age-related macular degeneration (AMD), where RPE degeneration occurs only in elderly patients, those with early and intermediate forms of the disease have less fundus autofluorescence signals than age-matched non-diseased humans8. These clinical findings have been verified at the histologic level as well9,10.
Animal models of RPE lipofuscin accumulation have also left some ambiguity about lipofuscin toxicity. The ABCA4 knockout mouse does not display retinal degeneration on a pigmented background, whereas it does on an albino background or when exposed to blue light11,12. Further, the toxicity of lipofuscin derived via ABCA4 knockout likely differs from the more slowly accumulating lipofuscin that occurs with natural aging, as seen in AMD13.
In vitro models of lipofuscin accumulation provide an alternative to studying the effects of lipofuscin accumulation on RPE health. Such models allow for manipulating lipofuscin components, from feeding single retinoid components to feeding OS, and allow study in human rather than animal RPE. In the last couple of decades, multiple methods have been developed to model RPE lipofuscin in culture. Along with other groups, Dr. Boulton&#39;s group fed bovine OS daily for up to three months on passage 4 to 7 human primary RPE cells from donors aged 4 to 85 years old14. Alternatively, inhibition of autophagy has also led to lipofuscin accumulation in passages 3 to 7 primary human RPE cultures15. However, sub-lethal lysosomal inhibition in highly differentiated, passage 1, primary human pre-natal RPE (hfRPE) cultures failed to induce lipofuscin, even with the repeated addition of OS on a daily basis16.
As a more reductionist approach, others have fed single lipofuscin components to cultures, especially the bis-retinoid A2E4,17. Such studies are valuable in that they define potential direct mechanisms of toxicity for individual lipofuscin components, implicating, for example, lysosomal cholesterol and ceramide homeostasis18. At the same time, there is debate about the toxicity of A2E19, and feeding it directly to cells circumvents the typical pathway for lipofuscin accumulation, which involves phagocytosis of photoreceptor OS. In an attempt to deliver all components of lipofuscin to RPE cultures, Boulton and Marshall purified lipofuscin from human eyes and fed this to passage 4 to 7 human primary RPE cultures derived from both fetal and elderly human donors20. While innovative, this method represents a limited lipofuscin source for repeated experiments.
While repeated feedings of OS to RPE cultures produce lipofuscin in many systems, it fails to do so in highly differentiated primary RPE cultures16. Photo-oxidizing OS induces cross-linking reactions like bis-retinoid formation that naturally occurs during lipofuscin formation in vivo. This can accelerate lipofuscin-like granule formation in RPE culture systems, even those that are highly differentiated and resistant to lipofuscin accumulation16. Here, a method to induce lipofuscin-like granule accumulation in highly differentiated hfRPE and human iPSC-RPE is introduced, modified from Wihlmark&#39;s published protocol21. This method has the advantage of inducing lipofuscin-like granules employing the same source (photoreceptor OS) and pathway (phagolysosomal OS uptake) as occurs for lipofuscinogenesis in vivo. Further, it is done on human RPE cultures that are highly differentiated and validated in multiple studies to replicate human RPE in vivo22,23,24. These lipofuscin-like granules are termed undigestible autofluorescent material (UAM), and provide data and discussion in this protocol comparing UAM to in vivo lipofuscin. Along with methods for building and evaluating UAM-laden cultures in highly differentiated human RPE, an updated method to assess RPE OS phagocytosis is also introduced. Multiple excellent pulse-chase methods for quantifying OS phagocytosis have been introduced, including Western blotting, immunocytochemistry, and FACS25,26,27. However, early in the OS pulse-chase, conditions that lead to poor OS uptake can be conflated with conditions that promote rapid degradation of internalized OS. The method presented here measures the total amount of introduced OS that is fully consumed/degraded by the RPE (&#34;Total Consumptive Capacity&#34;), helping eliminate this ambiguity. It is anticipated that insights about lipofuscin toxicity utilizing these protocols, including effects on OS phagocytosis rates utilizing the &#34;Total Consumptive Capacity&#34; method, will be used to shed light on the toxicity of lipofuscin in vivo.

著者スポットライト:高度に分極したヒト網膜色素上皮培養における改良されたリポフスチンモデルと外側セグメント食作用能力の定量化  

高度に分極されたヒト網膜色素上皮培養におけるリポフスチンモデルの改善と外セグメント食能力の定量化

While lipofuscin universally accumulates in the RPE with aging, discerning its toxicity has been difficult. Here, we develop protocols that allow us to develop lipofuscin-like accumulation in highly polarized and mature RPE cultures to help discern lipofuscin's effects on RPE physiology. Studying lipofuscin toxicity in humans is confounded by the fact that lipofuscin decreases as the RPE dies.Animal models of lipofuscin toxicity have had widely disparate results. We have carefully created in vitro models of lipofuscin-like material accumulation to facilitate the study of lipofuscin toxicity. The key to the success of our models is maintaining highly differentiated cultures while inducing lipofuscin genesis via the same process that triggers lipofuscin in vivo, namely phagocytosis of photoreceptor outer segments.Our in vitro protocol is unique in that lipofuscin-like material accumulates in RPE cultures that are highly differentiated to faithfully mimic RPE in vivo. In these circumstances, we found that RPE culture are highly resistant to the lipofuscin accumulation and to toxic effect from lipofuscin. Additionally, in the process of assaying for phenotypes induced by lipofuscin-like accumulation in our RPE cultures, we created a new type of phagocytosis assay called total consumptive capacity.This assay allows us to determine the entire capacity of the RPE to phagocytose outer segments while avoiding some of the confounding interpretations that come with classical pulse-chase phagocytosis assays. We are excited to utilize this model of lipofuscin-like material accumulation to better understand what RPE stressors may take normally inert lipofuscin into a more pathological role in RPE cell deaths.

Watch this Scientific Journal Video about Characterization of the Lipofuscin-Like Granule Spectrum and Composition at JoVE.com

Characterization of the Lipofuscin-Like Granule Spectrum and Composition  

リポフスチン様顆粒スペクトルおよび組成の特性評価

まず、リポフスチンを装填したRPE培養液で固定トランスウェルを採取します。培養物をPBSで5回洗浄した後、頂端室に少量のPBSを残す。トランスウェルを解剖顕微鏡下で逆さまに置きます。かみそりの刃を用いて、膜とトランスウェルの接合部に切削力を加えることにより、トランスウェルから半多孔膜を切り出す。トランスウェル膜が切断されたら、鉗子を使用して顕微鏡スライド上に置きます。細胞に触れないようにしながら、タスクワイプで余分なPBSを拭き取ります。封入剤を追加し、続いてカバースリップを追加します。トランスウェルのどちら側が正しいかを追跡してください。次に、蛍光色素を用いて目的の抗原を検出し、ピーク励起は488ナノメートル付近、発光検出は500〜530ナノメートルです。405ナノメートルの励起と585〜635ナノメートルの発光で、自己蛍光検出用に別のチャネルを設定します。OxOSによって誘導された自己蛍光顆粒は、5回の給餌と比較して、20回の給餌後により多くの蓄積を示しました。レシオメトリックイメージングは、Alexa 488で標識されたLC3からUAM自家蛍光を解読するのに役立ちました。赤チャンネルには難消化性の自家蛍光物質のみが含まれており、LC3シグナルをグリーンチャンネルから分離するのに役立ちました。

Research

JoVE Journal

Biology

Characterization of the Lipofuscin-Like Granule Spectrum and Composition

Improved Lipofuscin Models and Quantification of Outer Segment Phagocytosis Capacity in Highly Polarized Human Retinal Pigment Epithelial Cultures

The daily phagocytosis of photoreceptor outer segments by the retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) contributes to the accumulation of an intracellular aging ...