Name: rat mammary epithelial cell transplantation into the interscapular white fat pad
Uploaded: 2020-03-04T13:00:00
Description: Watch this Scientific Journal Video about Rat Mammary Epithelial Cell Transplantation into the Interscapular White Fat Pad at JoVE.com

This work was funded by the Hollings Cancer Center&#39;s Cancer Center Support Grant P30 CA138313 pilot research funding from the National Institutes of Health (<a href="https://www.nih.gov/" target="_blank">https://www.nih.gov/</a>), and funds from the Department of Pathology &#38; Laboratory Medicine at the Medical University of South Carolina. We would like to thank Marijne Smiths for recording the interview statements.

All animals were housed and maintained in an AAALAC-approved facility, and experiments described in this protocol were approved by the MUSC Institutional Animal Care &#38; Use Committee (IACUC). Animals for use in reciprocal transplantation should be an inbred or isogenic strain, with congenic status preferred or backcrossed for at least 6 generations.
1. Harvesting donor rat mammary gland epithelium
<ol>
	<li>Determine the number of donor rats needed for transplantation. 
	NOTE: Genera...

This protocol describes a mammary epithelial cell transplantation technique optimized for working with rats. Isolated mammary epithelial organoids from donor rats (3-5 weeks of age) are grafted into the interscapular white fat pad of recipient rats (also 3-5 weeks of age). Results can be interpreted as little as 4-6 weeks later, using light microscopy to examine the grafted tissue; however, the optimal amount of time between transplantation and sacrifice must be determined prior to implementing a full experiment. If too ...

Postnatal mammary gland development and ductal morphogenesis are processes largely influenced by hormonal signaling at the onset of puberty. In mice and rats, commonly used model organisms of mammary gland biology, this process begins around 3 weeks of age, where rapid proliferation and differentiation result in the formation of the mature parenchyma. The mature mammary gland can undergo numerous rounds of expansion and involution, a property that has been under investigation since the early 20th century. Within the context of hyperproliferation and cancer development, mammary gland transplantation techniques were developed in the 1950s1, and enhanced by the quantitative methodology contributed by Gould et al. in 19772,3,4. Refinement of the transplantation technique in rodents has contributed to major advances in understanding normal mammary gland biology that are still widely used to study the effect of various treatments and genetic manipulation on normal mammary gland development and disease states.
Many hypotheses have been generated and subsequently tested using mammary gland transplantation, first described by DeOme et al. in 19591. Experiments across several decades showed the propensity of ductal tissue excised from donor mammary glands to repopulate the entire fat pad5,6,7 and indicated that a critical component of mammary gland development resides in these epithelial structures. Later studies in mice showed that a single mammary stem cell can repopulate a cleared fat pad and contributed to the discovery of a single, common progenitor of basal and luminal mammary epithelial cells8,9,10. In line with these conclusions, it has been suggested that transplantation increases the pool of cells with multilineage-repopulating potential as a result of plasticity, allowing the grafted cells to grow a functional mammary gland7,10,11,12,13. Importantly, the use of transplantation techniques in rodents overcomes the limitations of cell culture-induced abnormalities14 and often provides results in just a matter of weeks.
While the procedure was originally described in the context of preneoplastic lesions in mice, it was soon expanded to rats and used in conjunction with the carcinogen treatment to establish multiplicity as a measure of cancer susceptibility15, but the popularity of transplantation techniques has followed the development of genetic tools for each species. Although mouse studies incorporating transplantation have contributed many translational findings, the parenchyma of the rat mammary gland resembles the human more closely16,17 and offers distinct advantages for studying estrogen receptor-positive (ER+) breast cancer. Mammary tumors are inducible in both species, but they differ in terms of hormone sensitivity and gene expression profiles. A primary difference is that rat mammary tumors express and depend on the function of ovarian and pituitary hormone receptors, namely, estrogen and progesterone (PR), similar to the luminal-A subtype of human breast cancer. Indeed, mammary epithelial cell transplantation, as described in this protocol, has been used to study genetic variants involved in breast cancer and determine the cellular autonomy of effects on mammary epithelial cells18.
In addition to the tumor biology, the ductal epithelium of the normal rat mammary gland exhibits a higher level of branching and is flanked by a thicker layer of stroma than the mouse. The importance of the stroma is well-documented in mammary epithelial transplantation studies. Mammary epithelium must interact with fatty stroma, and ideally its own mesenchyme, to undergo its characteristic morphogenesis19,20. Grafting tissue into a recipient mammary gland provides an optimal environment; however, the presence of endogenous epithelium can interfere with results. Preclearing the mammary gland of endogenous epithelium is commonly performed in mouse transplantation assays and requires surgical excision of endogenous mammary tissue and/or removal of the nipple1,21,22. Although possible, preclearing the mammary epithelium in post-weanling rats is not as widely-performed, mainly due to the ineffectiveness of clearing the growing mammary tree in post-weanling rats. Since it has been shown that regions of adipose tissue elsewhere in the body could support the growth of transplanted mammary epithelium21,23,24, the process of preclearing can be easily avoided in rats by grafting tissue into the interscapular white fat pad.
The transplantation method described in this paper involves the injection of enzymatically dissociated mammary gland organoids (fragments of mammary ductal epithelium and other cells types capable of morphogenesis) or monodispersed cells into the interscapular fat pad in inbred, isogenic or congenic strains of laboratory rats2. Because the interscapular fat pad is normally devoid of mammary tissue, it provides a suitable environment for multiple transplantation sites without the need to pre-clear endogenous epithelium. As a result, the host animal&#39;s endogenous, abdominal-inguinal mammary glands are not subject to surgical manipulation, develop normally, and cannot interfere with interpretation of results. Additionally, the intact mammary glands can be used for comparison to evaluate host versus donor effects on the mammary epithelium development and tumorigenesis18,25. Although repopulation of the mammary gland from a single stem cell is available for mice, it has not yet been developed for rat, mainly due to the lack of availability of antibodies to select for rat mammary stem cells25,26,27. Despite this, transplantation of monodispersed mammary epithelial cells to quantify repopulating potential can be successfully performed, and those cells will develop normally when grafted into the appropriate framework2,3,4. While organoids are good for many purposes, monodispersed cells are required for quantitative applications, for example, to determine the number of mammary epithelial cells required for the cancer initiation following ionizing radiation treatment28 or for comparing characteristics of flow cytometrically selected mammary epithelial cell populations29.
To date, the procedure described here is the most robust method of performing mammary gland transplantation in the rat with an overall goal of studying mammary gland development and mechanisms underlying breast cancer development. Often, the donor and/or recipient animals are exposed to different variables before, during, or after the epithelial transplantation. Examples include single gene studies involving chemical carcinogenesis30, radiation28,31,32, genetic manipulation of host/donor genome18, and hormonal manipulation12. A major advantage of the enzymatic dissociation described in this protocol is the opportunity to isolate epithelial organoids or monodispersed cells for complementary experiments involving flow cytometry, 3-D culture, gene editing, and more. Future applications of this technique will include additional manipulation of donor and/or host tissue with genetic engineering. For example, donor cells can be genetically altered ex vivo at any chosen genomic locus using the CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing system. Similarly, recipient rats can also be genetically altered to study the interaction between donor and recipient engineered genetic factors.

<table border="1" fo:keep-together.within-page="1" fo:keep-with-next.within-page="always">
	<tbody>
		<tr>
			<td>0.2 &#181;M syringe filters</td>
			<td>Fisher Scientific</td>
			<td>09-715G</td>
			<td>sterile-filtering collagenase digestion media</td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>1.5 - 2.0 mL microcentrifuge tubes (sterile)</td>
			<td>Fisher Scientific</td>
			<td>05-408-129</td>
			<td>containing resuspended cells and/or brain homogenate mixture</td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>100 &#181;M cell strainers</td>
			<td>Corning</td>
			<td>431752</td>
			<td>filtering brain homogenate</td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>100 uL gastight syringes with 25 gauge needles</td>
			<td>Hamilton</td>
			<td>81001 &#38; 90525</td>
			<td>For injecting graft mixture into recipient animals (1 per donor genotype/condition)</td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>1000 uL pipette tips + pipette</td>
			<td>-</td>
			<td>-</td>
			<td>transferring cells/mixtures/tissue</td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>15 mL polypropylene tube</td>
			<td>Falcon (Corning)</td>
			<td>352196</td>
			<td>brain homogenate mixture storage, or cell : homogenate mixture for transplantation</td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>40 &#181;M cell strainers</td>
			<td>Corning</td>
			<td>431750</td>
			<td>filtering organoids after washing the cell pellet</td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>50 mL polypropylene tubes</td>
			<td>Fisher Scientific</td>
			<td>05-539-6</td>
			<td>for collagenase digestion of donor mammary gland tissue</td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>60 mm dishes</td>
			<td>Thermo Scientific</td>
			<td>130181</td>
			<td>for mincing tissue</td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>Alum Potassium Sulfate</td>
			<td>Sigma-Aldrich</td>
			<td>243361/237086</td>
			<td>staining mammary gland whole mount slides</td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>Anesthesia vaporizer for veterinary use</td>
			<td>-</td>
			<td>-</td>
			<td>follow institutional protocol</td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>Beta-dine or iodine</td>
			<td>-</td>
			<td>-</td>
			<td></td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>Borosilicate glass culture tube for homogenization</td>
			<td>Fisher Scientific</td>
			<td>14-961-26</td>
			<td>for homogenization of brain (use appropriate tube for homogenizer)</td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>Carmine</td>
			<td>Sigma-Aldrich</td>
			<td>C6152/1022</td>
			<td>staining mammary gland whole mount slides</td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>Cell counting apparatus</td>
			<td>-</td>
			<td>-</td>
			<td></td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>Clean animal cages for recovery</td>
			<td>-</td>
			<td>-</td>
			<td>follow institutional protocol</td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>Collagenase Type 3</td>
			<td>Worthington Biochemical Corp.</td>
			<td>LS004183</td>
			<td>enzymatic digestion of minced mammary gland tissue from donor rats</td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>deionized water</td>
			<td>-</td>
			<td>-</td>
			<td>for chemical solutions</td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>DMEM/F12</td>
			<td>GIBCO</td>
			<td>11320033</td>
			<td>for mincing tissue, collagenase digestion media and resuspending epithelial cell mixtures</td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>EDTA</td>
			<td>-</td>
			<td>-</td>
			<td>monodispersion mixture</td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>Ethanol, 200 Proof</td>
			<td>Decon Labs</td>
			<td>2705/2701</td>
			<td>mammary whole mount slide fixative, mammary whole mount slide washes, cleaning surgical incision sites (diluted)</td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>Fetal Bovine Serum (FBS)</td>
			<td>Hyclone</td>
			<td>-</td>
			<td>inactivation solution</td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>Gauze</td>
			<td>-</td>
			<td>-</td>
			<td></td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>Glacial acetic acid</td>
			<td>Fisher Scientific</td>
			<td>A38-212</td>
			<td>use for mammary whole mount slide fixative (1:4 glacial acetic acid in 100% ethanol)</td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>HBSS</td>
			<td>GIBCO</td>
			<td>-</td>
			<td>monodispersion mixture</td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>Heating pads</td>
			<td>-</td>
			<td>-</td>
			<td>follow institutional protocol</td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>Ice buckets (x2)</td>
			<td>-</td>
			<td>-</td>
			<td></td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>Incubator with orbital rotation</td>
			<td>-</td>
			<td>-</td>
			<td>must be capable of maintaining 37&#176;C, shaking at 220-225 RPM (for collagenase digestion of mammary tissue)</td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>Isoflurane anesthesia</td>
			<td>-</td>
			<td>-</td>
			<td>follow institutional protocol</td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>Light microscope or digital camera</td>
			<td>-</td>
			<td>-</td>
			<td>visualizing whole mounted mammary epithelium and/or acquiring images</td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>Mechanical homogenizer</td>
			<td>Fisher Scientific</td>
			<td>-</td>
			<td>TissueMiser or alternative models</td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>Mineral oil, pure</td>
			<td>Sigma-Aldrich/ ACROS Organics</td>
			<td>8042-47-5</td>
			<td>long-term storage of cleared mammary gland whole mounts</td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>Oxygen tanks for anesthesia vaporizer</td>
			<td>-</td>
			<td>-</td>
			<td>follow institutional protocol</td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>Paper towels or delicate task wipes</td>
			<td>-</td>
			<td>-</td>
			<td></td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>Positively-charged microscope slides</td>
			<td>Thermo Scientific</td>
			<td>P4981-001</td>
			<td>mammary gland tissue whole mounts</td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>Postoperative analgesic</td>
			<td>-</td>
			<td>-</td>
			<td>Institutional protocol</td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>Scale</td>
			<td></td>
			<td></td>
			<td>body weight measurements of animals, proper dosing of pain medication</td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>Shaver</td>
			<td>-</td>
			<td>-</td>
			<td>electric clippers, or other</td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>Staining jars</td>
			<td>-</td>
			<td>-</td>
			<td>minimum of 1 per chemical wash, size appropriate for the number of slides, glass preferred</td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>Sterile field drapes</td>
			<td>IMCO</td>
			<td>4410-IMC</td>
			<td>used during transplantation</td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>Sterile scissors and forceps x3 (autoclaved)</td>
			<td>-</td>
			<td>-</td>
			<td>autoclave surgical tools used for donors and recipients</td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>Syringes: 5 mL (or greater)</td>
			<td>-</td>
			<td>-</td>
			<td>for sterile filtration of collagenase digestion media</td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>Trypsin</td>
			<td>Worthington</td>
			<td></td>
			<td>monodispersion mixture</td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>Waste collection receptacle for liquids (poured or aspirated)</td>
			<td>-</td>
			<td>-</td>
			<td></td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>Wound clip applier, clips, and removal tool</td>
			<td>Fine Science Tools</td>
			<td>12020-00</td>
			<td>Closing the skin incision over the interscapular white pad pad</td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>Xylenes</td>
			<td>Fisher Scientific</td>
			<td>X3S-4</td>
			<td>clearing mammary gland whole mount slides after staining</td>
		</tr>
	</tbody>
</table>

rat mammary epithelial cell transplantation into the interscapular white fat pad

As early as the 1970s, researchers have successfully transplanted mammary epithelial cells into the interscapular white fat pad of rats. Grafting mammary epithelium using transplantation techniques takes advantage of the hormonal environment provided by the adolescent rodent host. These studies are ideally suited to explore the impact of various biological manipulations on mammary gland development and dissect many aspects of mammary gland biology. A common, but limiting, feature is that transplanted epithelial cells are strongly influenced by the surrounding stroma and outcompeted by endogenous epithelium; to utilize native mammary tissue, the abdominal-inguinal white fat pad must be cleared to remove host mammary epithelium prior to the transplantation. A major obstacle when using the rat model organism is that clearing the developing mammary tree in post-weaned rats is not efficient. When transplanted into gland-free fat pads, donor epithelial cells can repopulate the cleared host fat pad and form a functional mammary gland. The interscapular fat pad is an alternative location for these grafts. A major advantage is that it lacks ductal structures yet provides the normal stroma that is necessary to promote epithelial outgrowth and is easily accessible in the rat. Another major advantage of this technique is that it is minimally invasive, because it eliminates the need to cauterize and remove the growing endogenous mammary tree. Additionally, the interscapular fat pad contains a medial blood vessel that can be used to separate sites for grafting. Because the endogenous glands remain intact, this technique can also be used for studies comparing the endogenous mammary gland to the transplanted gland. This paper describes the method of mammary epithelial cell transplantation into the interscapular white fat pad of rats.

Donor and recipient mammary glands 
The steps to isolate and prepare rat mammary epithelial cells for transplantation are shown in Figure 1A. At 4 weeks of age, the endogenous mammary gland of the donor rat has begun maturation and epithelium can be visualized on whole mounted slides stained with alum carmine (Figure 1B). One donor rat at this ag...

Watch this Scientific Journal Video about Rat Mammary Epithelial Cell Transplantation into the Interscapular White Fat Pad at JoVE.com 

Rat Mammary Epithelial Cell Transplantation into the Interscapular White Fat Pad (Video) | JoVE 

This article describes a transplantation method to graft donor rat mammary epithelial cells into the interscapular white fat pad of recipient animals. This method can be used to examine host and/or donor effects on mammary epithelium development and eliminates the need for pre-clearing, thereby extending the usefulness of this technique.

Rat Mammary Epithelial Cell Transplantation into the Interscapular White Fat Pad

As early as the 1970s, researchers have successfully transplanted mammary epithelial cells into the interscapular white fat pad of rats. Grafting mammary ...

Research

JoVE Journal

Cancer Research

Surgical Procedures and Methodology for a Preclinical Murine Model of De Novo Mammary Cancer Metastasis

Surgical Procedures and Methodology for a Preclinical Murine Model of De Novo Mammary Cancer Metastasis (Video) | JoVE 

A rate-limiting aspect of transgenic mouse models of mammary adenocarcinoma is that primary tumor burden in mammary tissue typically defines study ...

Transplantation of Zebrafish Pediatric Brain Tumors into Immune-competent Hosts for Long-term Study of Tumor Cell Behavior and Drug Response

Transplantation of Zebrafish Pediatric Brain Tumors into Immune-competent Hosts for Long-term Study of Tumor Cell Behavior and Drug Response (Video) | JoVE 

Tumor cell transplantation is an important technique to define the mechanisms controlling cancer cell growth, migration, and host response, as well as to ...

Live-imaging of Breast Epithelial Cell Migration After the Transient Depletion of TIP60

Live-imaging of Breast Epithelial Cell Migration After the Transient Depletion of TIP60 (Video) | JoVE 

The wound-healing assay is efficient and one of the most economical ways to study cell migration in vitro. Conventionally, images are taken at the ...

Conditional Knockdown of Gene Expression in Cancer Cell Lines to Study the Recruitment of Monocytes/Macrophages to the Tumor Microenvironment

Conditional Knockdown of Gene Expression in Cancer Cell Lines to Study the Recruitment of Monocytes/Macrophages to the Tumor Microenvironment (Video) | JoVE 

siRNA and shRNA-mediated knock down (KD) methods of regulating gene expression are invaluable tools for understanding gene and protein function. However, ...

A Syngeneic Pancreatic Cancer Mouse Model to Study the Effects of Irreversible Electroporation

A Syngeneic Pancreatic Cancer Mouse Model to Study the Effects of Irreversible Electroporation (Video) | JoVE 

Pancreatic cancer (PC), a disease which kills approximately 40,000 patients each year in the US, has successfully evaded several therapeutic approaches ...

Orthotopic Injection of Breast Cancer Cells into the Mice Mammary Fat Pad

Orthotopic Injection of Breast Cancer Cells into the Mice Mammary Fat Pad (Video) | JoVE 

A proper animal model is crucial for a better understanding of diseases. Animal models established by different methods (subcutaneous injections, ...

In Vitro Tumor Cell Rechallenge For Predictive Evaluation of Chimeric Antigen Receptor T Cell Antitumor Function

In Vitro Tumor Cell Rechallenge For Predictive Evaluation of Chimeric Antigen Receptor T Cell Antitumor Function (Video) | JoVE 

The field of chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cell therapy is rapidly advancing with improvements in CAR design, gene-engineering approaches and ...

Modeling Breast Cancer via an Intraductal Injection of Cre-expressing Adenovirus into the Mouse Mammary Gland

Modeling Breast Cancer via an Intraductal Injection of Cre-expressing Adenovirus into the Mouse Mammary Gland (Video) | JoVE 

Breast cancer is a heterogeneous disease, possibly due to complex interactions between different cells of origins and oncogenic events. Mouse models are ...

Evaluating the Differentiation Capacity of Mouse Prostate Epithelial Cells Using Organoid Culture

Evaluating the Differentiation Capacity of Mouse Prostate Epithelial Cells Using Organoid Culture (Video) | JoVE 

The prostate epithelium is comprised predominantly of basal and luminal cells. In vivo lineage tracing has been utilized to define the differentiation ...