Name: megakaryocyte culture in 3d methylcellulose-based hydrogel to improve cell maturation and study the impact of stiffness and confinement
Uploaded: 2021-08-26T13:30:00
Description: Watch this Scientific Journal Video about Megakaryocyte Culture in 3D Methylcellulose-Based Hydrogel to Improve Cell Maturation and Study the Impact of Stiffness and Confinement at JoVE.com

The authors would like to thank Fabien Pertuy and Alicia Aguilar who initially developed this technique in the lab, as well as Dominique Collin (Institut Charles Sadron - Strasbourg) who characterized the viscoelastic properties of the methylcellulose hydrogel. This work was supported by ARMESA (Association de Recherche et D&#233;veloppement en M&#233;decine et Sant&#233; Publique) and by an ARN grant (ANR-18-CE14-0037 PlatForMechanics). Julie Boscher is a recipient from the Fondation pour la Recherche M&#233;dicale (FRM grant number FDT202012010422).

All experiments should be performed in compliance with institutional guidelines for the care and use of laboratory animals. All protocols displayed in the video were carried out in strict accordance with the European law and the recommendations of the Review Board of the Etablissement Fran&#231;ais du Sang (EFS). A first version of this protocol was originally published in 2018 in Methods in Molecular Biology 8.
NOTE: Figure 1 presents a sc...

<ol>
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In the previous decade, mechanobiology has raised more and more interest in many areas of biology. It is now commonly acknowledged that the mechanical environment surrounding the cells does play a role in their behavior, emphasizing the importance to study how megakaryocytes sense and respond to extracellular mechanical cues. It is challenging to accurately measure the stiffness of the bone marrow tissue in situ11, especially if we consider the hematopoietic red marrow as it is located in...

Cells in the body experience a complex 3D microenvironment and are subjected to the interplay between chemical and mechanophysical cues including stiffness from the tissue and confinement due to neighboring cells and surrounding matrix 1,2,3. The importance of stiffness and confinement for cell behavior has only been recognized in the last decades. In 2006, the seminal work from Engler et al. 4 highlighted the importance of the mechanical environment for cell differentiation. The authors demonstrated that variation in cell substrate stiffness resulted in the orientation of stem cells towards various differentiation lineages. Since then, the impact of mechanical cues on cell fate and behavior has become increasingly recognized and studied. Despite it being one of the softest tissues of the organism, the bone marrow has a 3D structural organization that is confined inside the bone. Marrow stiffness, although technically difficult to measure precisely, is estimated to lie between 15 and 300 Pa 5, 6. Within the stroma, cells are tightly confined to one another. In addition, most of them are migrating toward the sinusoid vessels to enter the blood circulation. These conditions create additional mechanical constraints on adjacent cells, which have to adapt to these forces. Mechanical cues represent an important parameter whose consequences on megakaryocyte differentiation and proplatelet formation have just recently been explored. Although megakaryocytes can differentiate in vitro in traditional liquid culture, they do not reach the degree of maturation observed in vivo, in part due to the absence of the mechanical cues from the 3D environment 7. Growing progenitors embedded in hydrogel brings 3D mechanical cues that are lacking in liquid milieu.
Hydrogels have been widely used for several decades in the hematological field, notably to grow cells in colony forming assays to quantify hematopoietic progenitors. However, such hydrogels have seldom been used to explore the biological impact of the 3D mechanical environment on maturation and differentiation of hematopoietic cells. Over the past few years our laboratory has developed a 3D culture model using a methylcellulose-based hydrogel 8. This nonreactive physical gel is a useful tool to mimic the physical constraints of the native megakaryocyte environment. It is derived from cellulose by replacement of hydroxyl residues (-OH) by methoxide groups (-OCH3). Both the degree of methyl substitution and the methylcellulose concentration determine the hydrogel stiffness once it has jellified. During the development stage of this technique, it was demonstrated that a Young&#39;s modulus in the range of 30 to 60 Pa is the optimal gel stiffness for megakaryocyte growth 9.
The following protocol describes a method to grow mouse megakaryocytic progenitors in a 3D methylcellulose hydrogel. It has been previously shown that compared with standard liquid culture, this hydrogel culture increases the degree of megakaryocyte polyploidization, improves the maturation and intracellular organization, and increases the capacity of megakaryocytes to extend proplatelets once resuspended in a liquid medium 9. This manuscript describes in detail the protocol for the isolation of mouse bone marrow Lin&#8722; cells and their embedding in a methylcellulose hydrogel for 3D culture as well as the quantification of their capacity to produce proplatelets and the recovery of the cells for further analyses.

<table border="1" fo:keep-together.within-page="1" fo:keep-with-next.within-page="always">
	<tbody>
		<tr>
			<td>18-gauge needles</td>
			<td>Sigma-Aldrich</td>
			<td>1001735825</td>
			<td></td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>21-gauge needles</td>
			<td>BD Microlance</td>
			<td>301155</td>
			<td></td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>23-gauge needles</td>
			<td>Terumo</td>
			<td>AN*2332R1</td>
			<td></td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>25-gauge neeldes</td>
			<td>BD Microlance</td>
			<td>300400</td>
			<td></td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>4-well culture dishes</td>
			<td>Thermo Scientific</td>
			<td>144444</td>
			<td></td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>5 mL syringes</td>
			<td>Terumo</td>
			<td>SS+05S1</td>
			<td></td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>Cytoclips</td>
			<td>Microm Microtech</td>
			<td>F/CLIPSH</td>
			<td></td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>Cytofunnels equiped with filter cards</td>
			<td>Microm Microtech</td>
			<td>F/JC304</td>
			<td></td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>Cytospin centrifuge</td>
			<td>Thermo Scientific</td>
			<td></td>
			<td>Cytospin 4</td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>Dakopen</td>
			<td>Dako</td>
			<td></td>
			<td></td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>DMEM 1x</td>
			<td>Gibco, Life Technologies</td>
			<td>41 966-029</td>
			<td></td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>DPBS</td>
			<td>Life Technologies</td>
			<td>14190-094</td>
			<td>Sterile Dulbecco&#8217;s phosphate-buffered saline</td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>EasySep magnets</td>
			<td>Stem Cell Technologies</td>
			<td>18000</td>
			<td></td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>EasySep Mouse Hematopoietic Progenitor Cell isolation Kit</td>
			<td>Stem Cell Technologies</td>
			<td>19856A</td>
			<td>biotinylated antibodies (CD5,CD11b, CD19, CD45R/B220, Ly6G/C(Gr-1), TER119,7&#8211;4) and streptavidin-coated magnetic beads</td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>EDTA</td>
			<td>Invitrogen</td>
			<td>15575-020</td>
			<td></td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>Fetal Bovine Serum</td>
			<td>Healthcare Life Science</td>
			<td>SH30071.01</td>
			<td></td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>Luer lock 1 mL syringes</td>
			<td>Sigma-Aldrich</td>
			<td>Z551546-100EA</td>
			<td>or 309628 syringes from BD MEDICAL</td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>Luer lock syringes connectors</td>
			<td>Fisher Scientific</td>
			<td>11891120</td>
			<td></td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>MC 3%</td>
			<td>R&#38;D systems</td>
			<td>HSC001</td>
			<td></td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>Polylysin coated slides</td>
			<td>Thermo Scientific</td>
			<td>J2800AMNZ</td>
			<td></td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>PSG 100x</td>
			<td>Gibco, Life Technologies</td>
			<td>1037-016</td>
			<td>10,000 units/mL penicillin, 10,000 &#956;g/mL streptomycin and 29.2 mg/mL glutamine</td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>Rat serum</td>
			<td>Stem Cell Technologies</td>
			<td>13551</td>
			<td></td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>Recombinant hirudin</td>
			<td>Transg&#232;ne</td>
			<td>rHV2-Lys47</td>
			<td></td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>Recombinant human trombopoietin (rhTPO)</td>
			<td>Stem Cell Technologies</td>
			<td>2822</td>
			<td>10,000 units/mL</td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>Round bottomed 10 mL plastique tubes</td>
			<td>Falcon</td>
			<td>352054</td>
			<td></td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>Round bottomed 5 mL polystyrene tubes</td>
			<td></td>
			<td></td>
			<td></td>
		</tr>
	</tbody>
</table>

megakaryocyte culture in 3d methylcellulose-based hydrogel to improve cell maturation and study the impact of stiffness and confinement

The 3D environment leading to both confinement and mechanical constraints is increasingly recognized as an important determinant of cell behavior. 3D culture has thus been developed to better approach the in vivo situation. Megakaryocytes differentiate from hematopoietic stem and progenitor cells (HSPCs) in the bone marrow (BM). The BM is one of the softest tissues of the body, confined inside the bone. The bone being poorly extensible at the cell scale, megakaryocytes are concomitantly subjected to a weak stiffness and high confinement. This protocol presents a method for the recovery of mouse lineage negative (Lin-) HSPCs by immuno-magnetic sorting and their differentiation into mature megakaryocytes in a 3D medium composed of methylcellulose. Methylcellulose is non-reactive towards megakaryocytes and its stiffness may be adjusted to that of normal bone marrow or increased to mimic a pathological fibrotic marrow. The process to recover the megakaryocytes for further cell analyses is also detailed in the protocol. Although proplatelet extension is prevented within the 3D milieu, it is described below how to resuspend the megakaryocytes in liquid medium and to quantify their capacity to extend proplatelets. Megakaryocytes grown in 3D hydrogel have a higher capacity to form proplatelets compared to those grown in a liquid milieu. This 3D culture allows i) to differentiate progenitors towards megakaryocytes reaching a higher maturation state, ii) to recapitulate phenotypes that may be observed in vivo but go unnoticed in classical liquid cultures, and iii) to study transduction pathways induced by the mechanical cues provided by a 3D environment.

Data obtained using this protocol were originally published in Blood in 20169.
According to the protocol, the cells were seeded in either liquid or methylcellulose hydrogel medium. Cells in liquid medium have all sedimented at the bottom of the well, in contact with the stiff plastic surface and sometime with other cells. In contrast, cells embedded in methylcellulose hydrogel are distributed homogeneously in the gel and are isolated from neighboring cells (<strong clas...

Watch this Scientific Journal Video about Megakaryocyte Culture in 3D Methylcellulose-Based Hydrogel to Improve Cell Maturation and Study the Impact of Stiffness and Confinement at JoVE.com

Megakaryocyte Culture in 3D Methylcellulose-Based Hydrogel to Improve Cell Maturation and Study the Impact of Stiffness and Confinement

It is now acknowledged that the three-dimensional environment of cells can play an important role in their behavior, maturation and/or differentiation. This protocol describes a three-dimensional cell culture model designed to study the impact of physical containment and mechanical constraints on megakaryocytes.

The 3D environment leading to both confinement and mechanical constraints is increasingly recognized as an important determinant of cell behavior. 3D ...

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