STEMGENT Page 1 OVERVIEW The following protocol describes the reprogramming of one well of mouse embryonic fibroblasts (MEFs) into induced pluripotent stem (ips) cells in a 6-well format. Transduction efficiency can vary depending on such factors as the amount of virus used, the type of cell transduced, the use of cationic polymers, and the type of media used. If using cell types or conditions different from what is listed below, the amounts of virus used may need to be optimized. Product Description Cat. No. Format Storage Dox Inducible Reprogramming Lentivirus Set: Mouse OKSM ST000021 1 set Product Components Cat. No. Size Storage Dox Inducible Reprogramming Lentivirus: Mouse Oct4 Dox Inducible Reprogramming Lentivirus: Mouse Klf4 Dox Inducible Reprogramming Lentivirus: Mouse Sox2 Dox Inducible Reprogramming Lentivirus: Mouse c-myc ST070008 1 ml ST070010 1 ml ST070007 1 ml ST070009 1 ml Lentivirus rtta 2 x 50 µl Dox Lentivirus GFP 50 µl ADDITIONAL MATERIALS REQUIRED Oct4-neo MEF (P2) ( Cat. No. 08-0014) DMEM FBS L-glutamine β-mercaptoethanol Non-essential amino acids 0.2% gelatin in water, tissue culture grade, sterile Knockout DMEM (Invitrogen) ES cell-qualified fetal calf serum Stemfactor Recombinant Mouse LIF ( Cat. No. 03-0011-100) Stemolecule Doxycycline hyclate ( Cat. No. 04-0016) PBS 0.05% trypsin/edta Antibiotic G418 (Sigma) 6-well tissue culture plates 4-well tissue culture plates 24-well tissue culture plates 96-well tissue culture plates 15 ml conical tubes
STEMGENT Page 2 MATERIAL PREPARATION MEF Medium 450 ml DMEM 50 ml FBS 5 ml Non-essential amino acids (100X) 5 ml L-glutamine (200 mm) 0.5 ml β-mercaptoethanol (55 mm) Filter-sterilize using a 0.22 µm pore size, low protein-binding filter. Store MEF Medium at 4 C. Gelatin Coated Plates 1.5 ml 0.2% gelatin in water to each well of a 6-well tissue culture plate 0.5 ml 0.2% gelatin in water to each well of a 4-well tissue culture plate Incubate at 37 C for a minimum of 1 hour. Gelatin Coated Plates can be stored at 37 C for up to 1 week. Transduction Medium 1 ml Dox Inducible Reprogramming Lentivirus: Mouse Oct4 1 ml Dox Inducible Reprogramming Lentivirus: Mouse Sox2 1 ml Dox Inducible Reprogramming Lentivirus: Mouse Klf4 1 ml Dox Inducible Reprogramming Lentivirus: Mouse c-myc 25 µl Lentivirus rtta Thaw one vial of each virus on ice and add the contents to a 15 ml conical tube. Add the rtta virus to the tube. Viral stock solutions have been validated to maintain their titer after one additional freeze/thaw cycle. Aliquot and store any remaining viral stock solution at. Transduction Medium should be used immediately. mipsc Culture Medium 425 ml Knockout DMEM 75 ml ES cell-qualified fetal calf serum 5 ml Non-essential amino acids (100X) 5 ml L-glutamine (200 mm) 0.5 ml β-mercaptoethanol (55 mm) 25 µl Recombinant Mouse LIF (1 x 10 7 U/ml) Filter-sterilize using a 0.22 µm pore size, low protein-binding filter. Store mipsc Culture Medium at 4 C for up to 2 weeks.
STEMGENT Page 3 Dox Solution (2 mg/ml) 10 mg Doxycycline hyclate 5 ml Tissue culture grade water Add 0.5 ml of tissue culture grade water to the vial of doxycycline hyclate. Mix the suspension by inversion until all of the doxycycline has dissolved and the solution is clear. Transfer the suspension to a 15 ml conical tube. Add another 0.5 ml of tissue culture grade water to the vial and mix to dissolve any additional doxycycline. Transfer the suspension to the 15 ml conical tube. Bring the stock solution volume up to 5 ml with tissue culture grade water. Filter-sterilize using a 0.22 µm pore size, low proteinbinding filter. Aliquot in 1.5 ml microcentrifuge tubes and store at -20 C. Avoid multiple freeze/thaw cycles of Dox Solution. Dox Induction Medium 10 ml mipsc Culture Medium 10 μl Dox Solution (2 mg/ml) Prepare Dox Induction Medium fresh daily. Thaw Dox Solution on ice and add to prewarmed ipsc Culture Medium. MEF Feeder Plates The day before MEF Feeder Plates are needed, thaw gamma irradiated feeder layer MEFs and dilute to a concentration of 1 x 10 5 cells/ml in MEF Medium. Add 500 µl of cell suspension to each well of a 24-well tissue culture plate for a final concentration of 5 x 10 4 cells per well. Incubate overnight at 37 C and 5% CO 2.
STEMGENT Page 4 REPROGRAMMING TIMELINE DAY Oct4-neo MEF Preparation and Transduction ACTIVITY -3 Plate Oct4-neo MEFs. -2 Transduce Oct4-neo MEFs. -1 Replate transduced Oct4-neo MEFs onto 4- and 6-well Gelatin Coated Plates. Dox Induction 0 Replace medium with Dox Induction Medium. 2 Determine transduction efficiency using the 4-well plates. 1-16 Replace medium of the 6-well plates every 48 hours with Dox Induction Medium. ips Cell Colony Selection (optional) 10-14 Add G418 to the Dox Induction Medium to remove Oct4-neo MEFs that have not initiated the reprogramming process Dox Removal 17+ Replace medium every 24 hours with mipsc Culture Medium. Colony Isolation and Expansion 22+ Begin picking colonies, expand in fresh mipsc Culture Medium. Manually passage isolated colonies to expand. REPROGRAMMING MEF CELLS Prepare Cells for Reprogramming If using Oct4-neo MEFs, follow the plating protocol listed below. If using another cell type, different plating density may be required. 1. Plate Oct4-neo MEFs on a 6-well Gelatin Coated Plate at a final density of 2 x 10 5 cells per well. 2. Incubate overnight at 37 C and 5% CO 2 to reach the desired density of 50 to 80% confluency. Transduce MEFs 3. Prepare the Lentiviral Transduction Medium. 4. Aspirate the medium from the well of Oct4-neo MEFs to be reprogrammed and add the Lentiviral Transduction Medium. Ensure that the medium is evenly distributed by gentle rocking of the cell culture dish. 5. Incubate overnight at 37 C and 5% CO 2.
STEMGENT Page 5 Replate Transduced Cells 6. Twenty to 24 hours post transduction aspirate the Transduction Medium. 7. Wash the well with 2 ml of PBS. 8. Aspirate the PBS and add 1 ml of 0.05% trypsin/edta. 9. Incubate the plate for 2 minutes at 37 C and 5% CO 2. 10. Add 2 ml of MEF Medium to neutralize the trypsin/edta. 11. Pipet the medium across the surface of the well until the cells appear completely detached. 12. Transfer the cell solution to a 15 ml conical tube. 13. Centrifuge the cells for 5 minutes at 200 x g. 14. Remove the supernatant. 15. Resuspend the cell pellet in 1 ml of MEF Medium. 16. Mix the cell solution gently in order to create a uniform suspension of single cells. 17. Count the total number of cells using a hemacytometer. 18. Add the appropriate amount of MEF Medium to bring the cell suspension to 2.5 x 10 4 cells/ml. 19. Aspirate the medium from a 6-well Gelatin Coated Plate and add 2 ml of cell suspension to each of the wells for a final cell density of 5 x 10 4 cells per well. 20. Aspirate the medium from four 4-well Gelatin Coated Plates and add 0.5 ml of the cell suspension to each of the wells for a final plating density of 1.25 x 10 4 cells per well. 21. Incubate overnight at 37 C and 5% CO 2. Note: Depending on the ability of the targeted cell type to be reprogrammed, it may be necessary to plate more cells per well to increase the likelihood of obtaining an ips cell colony that can be established as an independent cell line. Additionally, any transduced cells not re-plated can be frozen using standard cryopreservation techniques. Induce Reprogramming using Dox 22. Twenty to 24 hours after replating, aspirate the MEF Medium from the wells in the 6-well plate. 23. Add 2 ml of Dox Induction Medium to 3 of the wells. 24. Add 2 ml of mipsc Culture Medium to 1 well, which will serve as a negative control (See Figure 1 for reference). 25. Aspirate the MEF Medium from each well of the four 4-well plates. 26. Add 0.5 ml of Dox Induction Medium to 2 of the wells per plate. 27. Add 0.5 ml of mipsc Culture Medium to 2 of the wells per plate (See Figure 2 for reference). 28. Incubate the plates at 37 C and 5% CO 2.
STEMGENT Page 6 Determine Transduction Efficiency (4-well plate) Fourty-eight hours post induction, assess the transduction efficiency using the cells cultured in the 4-well plates. Perform ICC staining for 1 transcription factor per 4-well plate. For each transcription factor to be tested, incubate a dox-induced and noninduced well with both the primary and secondary antibodies. The remaining doxinduced well should be used as a negative control by incubating with the secondary antibody only. See Figure 2 for the experimental configuration of each 4-well plate. Follow the ICC staining procedure as described in s General for Immunocytochemistry. Medium Changes (6-well plate) 29. Day 1 to day 16: Appropriately replace the mipsc Culture Medium and Dox Induction Medium every 48 hours. 30. After day 16: Appropriately replace the medium with mipsc Culture Medium every 48 hours until all potential ips cell colonies have been picked from the 6-well plate. Note: It is necessary to remove dox from the growth medium once good colony morphologies are observed to ensure completion of the reprogramming process. Therefore we recommend removing dox from the growth medium at day 16. Removal of dox at day 16 ensures that the ips cell colonies picked and passaged are reliant on endogenous expression of pluripotency genes for colony survival and are not the result of sustained ectopic transcription factor expression. ips cell colonies remaining 5 to 7 days after the removal of dox should expand and passage similarly to mes cell colonies. Selection of ips Cell Colonies The Oct4-neo MEFs used in this protocol contain a knocked-in neomycin resistant gene under the control of the endogenous Oct4 gene (pou5f1) promoter, allowing selection of endogenous Oct4-expressing reprogrammed ips cells by their ability to survive in medium containing G418 (an analog of neomycin sulfate). It is recommended that G418 be applied to the cultures 10 to 12 days post-dox induction. Maintenance of the cultures in G418 (400 μg/ml) for 4 days is sufficient to remove reporter MEFs that have not initiated the reprogramming process. Once the G418 is removed, allow several days for the recovery of ips cell colonies that can be manually picked and passaged for expansion.
STEMGENT Page 7 Single Colony Pick and Passage 31. Manually pick colonies with ips cell morphology to a single well of a 24-well MEF Feeder Plate. a. Add 15 µl of PBS to each well of a 96-well tissue culture plate. b. Using a sterile glass picking tool, gently separate the identified colony from surrounding cells. c. Using the glass picking tool, gently detach each colony from the tissue culture well. d. Using a P10 or a P20 pipettor, pipette the detached colony out of the 6-well plate and into an individual well of the 96-well plate containing 15 µl of PBS. e. Trypsinize each individually isolated ips cell colony by adding 20 µl of 0.05% Trypsin/EDTA per well to dissociate the colony cells from one another. 32. Aspirate the medium from a 24-well MEF Feeder Plate and add 0.5 ml of mipsc Culture Medium to each well. 33. Add the trypsinized colony to one well of the 24-well MEF Feeder Plate. 34. Incubate the 24-well plate at 37 C and 5% CO 2. 35. Replace medium daily with 500 µl of fresh mipsc Culture Medium. If there is no visible colony attachment or expansion by 8 days after picking, then those wells do not need to be maintained and can be discarded. 36. Monitor cultures for equivalent ips cell colony growth and morphology. 37. Continue to passage and culture ips cell colonies for use in experimentation and banking. PLURIPOTENCY ANALYSIS Expanded ips cell colonies can be tested for pluripotency by using the Alkaline Phosphatase Staining Kit II ( Cat. No. 00-0055) and staining for typical pluripotency markers such as Nanog ( Cat. No. 09-0020), Oct4 ( Cat. No. 09-0023), and SSEA-1 ( Cat. No. 09-0005).
STEMGENT Page 8 Figure 1. 6-Well Plate Layout Typical set-up of a 6-well plate used for induction and culture of ips cells. Figure 2. 4-Well Plate Layout used to Assess Transduction Efficiency Well 1 is used for transduction efficiency assessment. These dox(+) cells are stained with both primary and secondary antibodies as well as DAPI for nuclear identification. Well 2 serves as a negative control. These dox(+) cells are stained with DAPI and the secondary antibody only to evaluate background signal from the antibody. Well 3 is a negativee control for dox-induction. These dox(-) cells are stained with primary and secondary antibodies as well as DAPI to assess both the specificity of the primary antibody and to monitor successfull induction with dox. This well of dox(-) cells should have little to no expression of the transcriptionn factors, but dox-inducible systems have demonstrated levels of basal expression in the absence of dox and should therefore be monitored. Well 4 is a double negative control, and can be omitted from the plate if there is a shortage of transduced cells for replating. These dox(-) cells are stained with secondary antibody and DAPI. Knockout DMEMM is a trademark of Life Technologies Cambridge, MA 02139