To begin, coat the Transwell inserts with 42 microliters of 0.05%Matrigel. Incubate for one hour at 37 degrees Celsius to allow Matrigel to set. Aspirate the extra medium and dry the Transwells for 30 minutes uncovered.
Then add 200 microliters of DMEM F12 medium to each insert and store at 37 degrees Celsius until use. Wash the Matrigel patties containing the organoids with PBS. Expose them to 500 microliters of cell recovery while on ice, and pipette the mixture repeatedly to ensure a full collection of cells in a 15 milliliter tube.
Then centrifuge the tube at 300g for five minutes at four degrees Celsius. Remove the supernatant and resuspend the cell pellet in the target volume of intestinal epithelial stem cell or IESC medium. Now, pre-coat a one milliliter syringe in IESC medium, aspirate the cell suspension through a 16-gauge needle.
Then replace the 16-gauge needle with a 28-gauge needle and eject the suspension to promote separation of the organoids. Next, place 200 microliters of the resulting cell suspension into the apical side of the coated Transwells. Add 500 microliters of IESC medium and growth factors to the basal side.
Use a dual electrode TEER measuring chamber to quantify the TEER across the monolayers. Fill the culture cup with 1.5 milliliters of IESC media and ensure exactly 200 microliters of media is present in the Transwell insert, so that the fluid levels match during measurement. Expose the basolateral aspect of the Transwell inserts to either inflammatory cytokines of interleukin-1 beta or glial products from cultures exposed to interleukin-1 beta.
Measure the TEER every 10 to 15 minutes for 45 minutes by placing each Transwell into the culture cup. Basolateral exposure to media from glial cultures treated with 10 and 25 nanograms of interleukin-1 beta significantly increased epithelial barrier permeability. No significant increase in epithelial permeability was observed after exposure to equine interleukin-6 across various concentrations.