Here, we describe two extracellular vesicle isolation protocols, ultrafiltration centrifugation and ultracentrifugation with density gradient centrifugation, to isolate extracellular vesicles from murine bronchoalveolar lavage fluid samples. The extracellular vesicles derived from murine bronchoalveolar lavage fluid by both methods are quantified and characterized.
Extracellular vesicles (EVs) are newly discovered subcellular components that play important roles in many biological signaling functions during physiological and pathological states. The isolation of EVs continues to be a major challenge in this field, due to limitations intrinsic to each technique. The differential ultracentrifugation with density gradient centrifugation method is a commonly used approach and is considered to be the gold standard procedure for EV isolation. However, this procedure is time-consuming, labor-intensive, and generally results in low scalability, which may not be suitable for small-volume samples such as bronchoalveolar lavage fluid. We demonstrate that an ultrafiltration centrifugation isolation method is simple and time- and labor-efficient yet provides a high recovery yield and purity. We propose that this isolation method could be an alternative approach that is suitable for EV isolation, particularly for small-volume biological specimens.
Exosomes are the smallest subset of EVs, 50–200 nm in diameter, and have multiple biological functions across a diverse array of signaling processes1,2,3,4,5. They govern cellular and tissue homeostasis primarily by facilitating intercellular communication through cargo molecules such as lipids, proteins, and nucleic acids6,7,8,9. One critical step in EV research is the isolation process. Differential ultracentrifugation (UC), with or without density gradient centrifugation (DGC), is considered the gold standard approach, but this method carries major limitations, including inefficient EV recovery rates and low scalability10,11,12, that restrict its best utilization to larger volume samples, such as cell culture supernatant or high exosome production specimens. The advantages and disadvantages of other methods, such as size exclusion by ultrafiltration or chromatography, immunoaffinity isolation by beads or columns, and microfluidics, are well described, and modern supplemental procedures have been developed to overcome and minimize technical limitations in each approach11,12,13,14,15. Others have shown that an ultrafiltration centrifugation (UFC) with a nanoporous membrane in the filter unit is an alternative technique that provides comparable purity to a UC method16,17,18. This technique could be considered as one of the alternative isolation methods.
Bronchoalveolar lavage fluid (BALF) contains EVs that possess numerous biological functions in various respiratory conditions19,20,21,22. Studying BALF-derived EVs entails some challenges due to the invasiveness of the bronchoscopy procedure in humans, as well as a limited amount of lavage fluid recovery. In small laboratory animals such as mice, only a few milliliters can be recovered in normal lung conditions, even less in inflamed or fibrotic lungs23. Consequently, collecting a sufficient amount of BALF for EV isolation by a differential ultracentrifugation for downstream applications may not be feasible. However, isolating correct EV populations is a crucial factor for studying EV biological functions. The delicate balance between efficiency and efficacy continues to be a challenge in well-established EV isolation methods.
In this current study, we demonstrate that a centrifugal ultrafiltration approach, utilizing a 100 kDa molecular weight cut-off (MWCO) nanomembrane filter unit, is suitable for small-volume biological specimen such as BALF. This technique is simple, efficient, and provides high purity and scalability to support the study of BALF-derived EVs.
The utilization of animals and all animal procedures were approved by the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committees (IACUC) at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center (CSMC).
1. Murine Bronchoalveolar Lavage Fluid (BALF) Collection and Preparation
2. Isolation of Extracellular Vesicles from Murine Bronchoalveolar Lavage Fluid
NOTE: In this study, two EV isolation techniques, namely UFC and ultracentrifugation with buoyant used to isolate EVs from BALF. The detailed protocol of each method is described below.
3. Extracellular Vesicle Quantification
NOTE: The BALF-derived EVs recovery yield is quantitated with two metrics.
4. Detection of BALF-derived Extracellular Vesicles
NOTE: Commonly known exosome surface marker proteins (TSG101, CD63, CD81, and CD9) were used to verify EV recoveries by SDS-PAGE and immunoblotting and flow cytometry analysis.
We performed EV isolation from mouse BALF using UFC and UC-DGC isolation methods on the same day. The UFC method required approximately 2.5–3 h, whereas the UC-DGC technique required 8 h of processing time. This did not include buffers and reagent preparation time. It should be noted that some other tasks could be performed during the long centrifugation periods. Nevertheless, the entire procedure lasted nearly an entire day for the UC-DGC isolation technique.
BALF-derived EVs from normal mice isolated by the UFC method displayed a smaller size and a more uniform size distribution (148.8 ± 1.1 nM, Figure 1A) compared to UC-DGC EVs (176.7 ± 7.8 nM, Figure 1B). The UFC technique had a profound 65-fold greater total particle counts when compared to UC-DGC isolation (29.4 ± 18.4 vs. 0.5 ± 0.1 x 1010 particles; p < 0.05; Table 2 and Figure 1C). The total protein recovery (in µg) of the UFC EVs was also higher (3,136 ± 1,860 vs. 73.7 ± 38.3 µg; p < 0.05; Table 2 and Figure 1D). Thus, UFC is time- and effort-efficient and provides a higher EV yield.
To further phenotypically characterize BALF-derived EV populations, we examined the presence of commonly known exosome surface protein markers: CD63, CD9, and CD81 by flow cytometry and TSG101 by immunoblotting. Using flow cytometry analysis, we demonstrated that UFC EVs and UC-DGC EVs both expressed CD63 (Figure 2A – 2C), CD9 (Figure 2D – 2F), and CD81 (Figure 2G – 2I).The geometric mean expression (gMFI) of CD63, CD9, and CD81 was quantified and not statistically different between the two conditions (Figure 3A – 3F).
Next, we examined another EV protein marker, TSG101, by immunoblotting. We showed that the 20 µg of the UFC flow-through (UFC-FT) sample did not contain TSG101 proteins, suggesting that the UFC isolation technique efficiently selected and retained the EV population from the BALF sample (Figure 4). When equal amounts of total protein (20 µg) from the BALF-EV sample was loaded, we found that UFC EVs expressed a higher level of TSG101 than UC-DGC EVs (Figure 4). We also showed that the purity of UFC-EV protein was acceptable, demonstrated by a single isolated protein band.
For all results, Student's t-test was used for two-group comparison. The results are presented as mean ± SEM (standard error of the mean), and p < 0.05 was considered significant.
Figure 1: Ultrafiltration centrifugation of murine bronchoalveolar lavage fluid (BALF)-derived EVs demonstrated a more homogenous size distribution than ultracentrifugation with density gradient centrifugation of murine BALF-derived EVs and had a significantly higher total particle count and protein content. The distribution of EV particle sizes was measured by nanoparticle tracking analysis (NTA), and the total protein content was measured by the bicinchoninic acid assay. (A) UFC-BALF EVs' NTA size distribution graph. (B) UC-DGC-BALF EVs' size distribution graph. (C) Total particle count by NTA (mean ± SEM x 1010 particles; * p < 0.05). (D) Total protein content (in µg, * p < 0.05). The data were derived from three independent experiments. UFC: ultrafiltration centrifugation; UC-DGC: ultracentrifugation with density gradient centrifugation; EVs: extracellular vesicles; SD: standard deviation; Conc: concentration. Please click here to view a larger version of this figure.
Figure 2: Murine bronchoalveolar lavage fluid-derived EVs isolated by ultrafiltration centrifugation and ultracentrifugation with density gradient centrifugation methods expressed tetraspanin proteins CD63, CD9, and CD81. Shown are percentages of EVs stained positive by the UFC and UC-DCG isolation techniques, illustrated by pseudocolor plots, for (A – C) PE-CD63, (D – F) FITC-CD9, and (G – I) PE-CD9. The data are derived from three independent experiments. UFC = ultrafiltration centrifugation; UC-DGC = ultracentrifugation with density gradient centrifugation; EVs = extracellular vesicles; SSC-A = side scatter analysis; PE = phycoerythrin; FITC = fluorescein isothiocyanate. Please click here to view a larger version of this figure.
Figure 3: Ultrafiltration centrifugation-isolated murine bronchoalveolar lavage fluid-derived EVs expressed a similar fluorescent density of tetraspanin proteins to ultracentrifugation-isolated EVs. (A and D) Histogram and geometric mean expression (gMFI) of PE-CD63+-stained EVs. (B and E) Histogram and gMFI of FITC-CD9+-stained EVs. (C and F) Histogram and gMFI of PE-CD81+-stained EVs. These data are derived from three independent experiments. UFC: ultrafiltration centrifugation; UC-DGC = ultracentrifugation with density gradient centrifugation; EVs: extracellular vesicles; SSC-A: side scatter analysis; PE: phycoerythrin; FITC: fluorescein isothiocyanate. Please click here to view a larger version of this figure.
Figure 4: Murine bronchoalveolar lavage fluid-derived EVs isolated by ultrafiltration centrifugation and ultracentrifugation with density gradient centrifugation methods expressed the exosome surface protein, TSG101. This panel shows the immunoblotting of murine BALF-derived EVs for the TSG101 antibody (47 kDa). UFC = ultrafiltration centrifugation; UC-DGC = ultracentrifugation with density gradient centrifugation; EVs = extracellular vesicles; FT = flow-through; TSG = tumor susceptibility gene. Please click here to view a larger version of this figure.
Working Solution Iodixanol (%) | 5 | 15 | 25 | 30 |
Working solution (mL)* | 2 | 6 | 10 | 12 |
Homogenization medium (mL)** | 18 | 14 | 10 | 8 |
Table 1: Buoyant density gradient buffers. This table gives the composition and buffer ratio of each gradient solution that was used to purify murine bronchoalveolar lavage fluid-derived extracellular vesicle populations isolated by the ultracentrifugation technique. * The working solution was 50% iodixanol (25 mL of density gradient medium [see Table of Materials] + 5 mL of diluent solution [pH 7.4 of 0.25 M sucrose + 120 mM HEPES + 0.9 M NaCl]). ** Homogenization medium (pH 7.4 of 0.25 M sucrose + 20 mM HEPES + 150 mM NaCl)
Methods | Starting Volume (mL) | NTA* (x108/μL) | Total Particles† (x1010) | Protein Conc‡ (µg/µL) | Total Proteins§ (µg) |
UFC | 35 | 7.69 ± 2.6 | 29.4 ± 18.4 | 3.7 | 3,136 ± 1860 |
UC-DGC | 35 | 0.5 ± 0.05 | 0.5 ± 0.1 | 0.6 | 73.7 ± 38.3 |
Table 2: The ultrafiltration centrifugation isolation method provided a high murine bronchoalveolar lavage fluid-derived extracellular vesicle yield. The particle concentration and total particle count were measured by nanoparticle tracking analysis (NTA). The protein concentration and total amount of protein were measured by a bicinchoninic acid protein assay. * BALF EVs' particle concentration (mean ± SEM x 108/μL from three independent experiments). † BALF EVs' total particle (mean ± SEM x 1010 particles from three independent experiments). ‡ BALF EVs' protein concentration (mean ± SEM µg/µL from three independent experiments). § BALF EVs' total protein (mean ± SEM mg from three independent experiments).
UFC: ultrafiltration centrifugation; UC-DGC: ultracentrifugation with density gradient centrifugation; Conc: concentration; NTA: nanoparticle tracking analysis; SEM: standard error of the mean.
In the past few decades, scientists have unraveled the significances of EVs in cellular homeostasis. More importantly, EVs play major roles in many disease processes by modulating neighboring and distant cells through their bioactive cargo molecules1,21,22,26,27,28,29,30. Future development and advancement in this field profoundly rely upon reliable and efficient methods that not only identify and separate correct subsets of EV populations but also preserve their biological functions for downstream applications10,11,14,31. In the current study, we described a nanomembrane ultrafiltration centrifugation (UFC) method to isolate EVs from mouse BALF. In concordance with other reports, we showed that UFC is simple and results in a high recovery yield and purity and, therefore, is suitable for small biological samples10,17,18,32.
UC-DGC is commonly used and is considered to be the gold standard technique for EV isolation because it provides highly purified EV particles10,14. However, this method is technically cumbersome, time-consuming, labor-intensive, and has low scalability. The newly developed microfluidics-based techniques overcome these limitations, but this approach requires further validation before it can be fully implemented as an alternative method33,34. Thus, appropriate methods that accommodate those difficulties without compromising the purity and scalability of samples are sorely needed, particularly for small-volume biological fluid.
We demonstrated that UFC using a nanomembrane filter device was effective for the EV isolation from BALF specimens. The findings presented here highlight the superiority of the UFC procedure in comparison to the gold standard UC-DGC method due to its simplicity and higher scalability. The ultrafiltration-based approach has become widely adopted to isolate EV from a variety of biological specimens: urine35, cell-conditioned media17, and fetal bovine serum36. The other modular size-based EV isolation technique that uses ultrafiltration as a platform is exosome total isolation chip (ExoTIC)31. This method is also suitable for small sample-size specimens. A few factors, such as filter material and the pore size of the nanomembranes, need to be considered when using the UFC technique because they may affect the properties of recovered EVs. For example, different types of filter membranes resulted in different EV-associated RNA recovery yields from urine18. In this study, we showed that regenerated cellulose (RC) with a 10 kDa MWCO provided the highest mRNA expression of NOP10, OST4, SNRPG, and TOMM7 compared to Hydrosart 10 kDa, or polyethersulfone (PES) of 10 kDa18. We further demonstrated that the RC with 10 kDa had a higher retentate EV recovery than the 100 kDa. Others have characterized urine EVs cargo contents that were affected by the type of isolation techniques37. Our study showed that the 100-kDa MWCO RC membrane provided a satisfactory BALF-derived EV yield with the advantage of much less unwanted proteins in the retentate due to the larger MWCO.
This study demonstrated that the sizes and size distribution of UFC EVs were smaller and more homogeneously distributed than those of UC-DGC EVs. Vesicle aggregation, which is common with UC techniques, may explain the dimension heterogeneity of UC-DGC EVs38. We assessed BALF-derived EV purity by detecting the EV membrane proteins TSG101, CD63, CD9, and CD81, which confirms the presence of exosomes in the retentates. We and others have also used TEM to demonstrate the morphology of the UFC EVs35,39,40,41. Liu et al. used a similar ultrafiltration-based approach to isolate EVs and, when compared to EVs isolated by ultracentrifugation, the proteomic and transcriptomic profiles were similar31. Thus, we describe an ultrafiltration centrifugation method using a regenerated cellulose membrane with an MWCO of 100 kDa as an alternative EV isolation method that is suitable for small biological fluid samples such as bronchoalveolar lavage fluid.
The critical steps using this UFC approach to isolate EVs from biological fluid include the initial nanoporous membrane 0.2 µm filtration to ensure that the enriched particles are in the exosomal size range and the avoidance of applying additional force that can damage or deform the exosome morphology and structures10,42. EVs can adhere to the filtration membrane, which results in lower scalability. Therefore, the volume of the sample should not exceed the recommended amount in each type of filter unit. We chose to use regenerated cellulose, which provided a higher mRNA yield from urine-derived EVs18. The type of filter membranes used can alter the recovery yield and type of EVs. Lastly, even though an MWCO of 100 kDa should eliminate the majority of proteins in the biological fluids, some protein contaminants that were larger than 100 kDa or protein aggregates were observed43. In this case, a washing step is critical to minimize EV and protein aggregation. Moreover, functional studies must be properly controlled in order to fully interpret the results, as non-EV-associated proteins will be present in the UFC EVs.
We conclude that UFC is an alternative approach that is feasible for EV isolation for small- or larger-volume samples. The currently available microfilter units can accommodate up to 15 mL of samples.
The authors have nothing to disclose.
The work is supported by the NHLBI/NIH grants HL103868 (to P.C.) and HL137076 (to P.C.), the American Heart Association Grant-in-Aid (to P.C.), and the Samuel Oschin Comprehensive Cancer Institute (SOCCI) Lung Cancer Research Award (to P.C.). We would like to express our great appreciation to the Smidt Heart Institute at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center that provides us a Nanosight machine for EV nanoparticle tracking analysis.
Material | |||
Amicon Ultra-15 centrifugal filters Ultracel-100K | Sigma-Millipore, St. Louis, MO | UFC910024 | |
Dulbecco's Phosphate Buffered Saline (DPBS) | Corning Cellgro, Manassas, VA | 21-031-CV | |
Sucrose | Sigma-Millipore, St. Louis, MO | EMD8550 | |
HEPES | Research Products International, Prospect, IL | 75277-39-3 | |
EDTA | Corning Cellgro, Manassas, VA | 46-034-CI | |
Sodium Chloride | Sigma-Millipore, St. Louis, MO | S3014-1KG | |
OptiPrep | Sigma-Millipore, St. Louis, MO | MKCD9753 | Density Gradient Medium |
Ketamine | VetOne, Boise, ID | 13985-702-10 | |
Xylazine | Akorn Animal Health, Lake Forest, IL | 59399-110-20 | |
Syringe 1 mL | BD Syringe, Franklin Lakes, NJ | 309656 | |
Angiocatheter 20G | BD Syringe, Franklin Lakes, NJ | 381703 | |
Centrifuge tubes 15 mL | VWR, Radnor, PA | 89039-666 | |
Centrifuge tubes 50 mL | Corning Cellgro, Manassas, VA | 430828 | |
Bicinchonic acid (BCA) protein assay | Pierce, Thermo Fischer Scientific, Rockford, IL | 23235 | |
Rabbit anti-mouse TSG101 Antibody | AbCam, Cambridge, MA | AB125011 | |
Rat anti-mouse PE-CD63 Antibody | Biolegend, San Diego, CA | 143904 | |
CD81 | |||
CD9 | |||
Anti-rabbit IgG, HRP-linked antibody | Cell Signaling Technology, Danvers, MA | 7074S | |
4x LDS | |||
10x Reducing agent (Bolt) | |||
10x Lysis buffer (Bolt) | Cell Signaling Technology, Danvers, MA | ||
Bolt 4-12% Bis-Tris Plus acrylamide gel | Invitrogen, Thermo Fisher Scientific, Waltham, MA | NW04120 | |
iBlot 2 Nitrocellulose mini stacks | Invitrogen, Thermo Fisher Scientific, Waltham, MA | IB23002 | |
Chemiluminescent HRP antibody detection reagent HyGLO | Denville Scientific, Holliston, MA | E2400 | |
Ultracentrifuge tubes 17 mL | Beckman Coulter, Pasadena, CA | 337986 | |
Ultracentrifuge tubes 38.5 mL | Beckman Coulter, Pasadena, CA | 326823 | |
Corning SFCA Syringe Filters 0.2 µm pore | Thermo Fisher Scientific, Waltham, MA | 09-754-13 | |
Equipment | |||
Centrifuge | Eppendorf, Hamburg, Germany | – | |
Ultracentrifuge | Beckman Coulter, Pasadena, CA | – | |
Nanosight (NS300) | Malvern, Worcestershire, UK | – | To measure particle size distribution and particle concentration |
MACSQuant Analyzer 10 flow cytometer | Miltenyi Biotec, Bergisch Gladbach, Germany | – | |
iBlot Transfer Apparatus | Thermo Fischer Scientific, Waltham, MA | – | |
Bio-Rad ChemiDoc MP Imaging System | Bio-Rad, Hercules, CA | ||
FlowJo v. 10 | Analysis software |