To begin, on day zero, pre-warm serum-free differentiation medium or SFD medium containing Mix 1 cytokine to 37 degrees Celsius. Then, under a sterile tissue culture hood, add the Mix 1 cytokine-supplemented medium to each well of a cell repellent six-well plate. To prepare the cells, aspirate the culture medium from a six-well plate containing human-induced pluripotent STEM cells or human IPS cells.
Wash them with DPBS followed by aspirating the DPBS. Then, add the dissociation reagent to the cells and incubate them at room temperature for a minute. After aspirating this dissociation reagent, incubate the cells for another three minutes at room temperature.
Then, tap the plate containing the cells 10 times on each side to detach the cell clusters. Add one milliliter of pre-warmed Mix 1 cytokine-supplemented SFD medium to the cells per well. Using a pasture pipette, transfer the cell clusters from each well to one well of the cell repellent plate containing the medium with Mix 1 cytokine.
After introducing the plate into the incubator, move it back and forth, as well as side to side, to disperse the content evenly and incubate it for embryoid bodies, or EB, formation. The next day, swirl the cell repellent plate containing the EBs to collect them into the center of the wells. Using a pasteur pipette, transfer the EB suspension from the wells to a 15-milliliter centrifuge tube.
Wait five to 10 minutes for the EBs to settle at the bottom of the tube. Meanwhile, wash the cell repellent plates with sterile water or DPBS to remove single cells or debris. Add two milliliters of Mix 1 cytokine-supplemented SFD medium to each well of the plate.
Now, gently aspirate the supernatant from the centrifuge tube without dislodging the EBs. Resuspend the EBs in the calculated volume of SFD medium containing Mix 1 cytokine. Add one milliliter of EB suspension to each well of the washed cell repellent plate already containing two milliliters of medium.
Incubate the plate after dispersing the EBs by gently moving the plate as mentioned before. After gathering the EBs at the center of the wells, add the chiron on the side of each well, avoiding direct contact with the cells, Incubate the wells as demonstrated previously. On days three and six of differentiation, collect the EBs and perform media changes as demonstrated previously for day one.
Use SFD medium supplemented with Mix 3 cytokines on day three and use SFD medium supplemented with Mix 4 cytokines on day six. After collecting and settling the EBs from the cell repellent plate into a 15-milliliter centrifuge tube, as demonstrated previously, aspirate the supernatant, then add one milliliter of cell dissociation reagent per well of EB collected in the tube to resuspend the EBs. Next, transfer one milliliter of this EB suspension to each well of the cell repellent plate washed with water.
After incubating the plate for 10 minutes in the incubator, use a P1000 pipette to dissociate the EBs in each well by gently pipetting up and down no more than 10 times. Then, add five milliliters of washing buffer per well of dissociated EBs. Collect the cells into a 50-milliliter centrifuge tube by passing them through a 40-micron strainer.
After counting the cells in the filtered suspension, spin the cells down for 10 minutes at 300g. Resuspend the cells in 300 microliters of washing buffer by gently pipetting a few times, ensuring no clumps are present. Proceed to isolate the CD34-positive cells using a CD34 microbead kit per the manufacturer's instructions.
EBs of good quality showed a defined edge by day two of the differentiation and appeared clear and bright when observed under a microscope. The presence of darker areas indicated cell death within the EBs. Following chiron treatment with varying concentrations on day two, quantifying the number of CD34-positive cells at day eight of differentiation revealed the response of the cell line to the treatment.
Flow cytometry showed that the CD34-positive enrichment using the magnetic beads provided about 85%CD34-positive cells.
