Overview
This video describes the protocol for detecting total cellular reactive oxygen species (ROS) using 2',7'-dichlorodihydrofluorescein diacetate (DCFH-DA). This method helps visualize ROS localization in the adherent cells using a fluorescence microscope and further quantify ROS intensity with a fluorescence plate reader.
Protocol
1. Cell seeding
- Seed 2 x 105 HCT116 colorectal cancer cells per well in a 24-well plate and maintain the cells in Dulbecco's modified Eagle medium (DMEM) overnight at 37 °C.
- Replace the culture medium with or without 100 µM ferrous sulfate (FS) or 10 µM doxorubicin (DOX) containing medium and incubate for 24 h.
2. Preparation of the DCFH-DA solution
- Dissolve 4.85 mg of DCFH-DA in 1 mL of dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) to make a 10 mM stock solution.
- Dilute the stock solution with pre-warmed DMEM into a 10 µM working solution right before adding it to the wells.
- Vortex the working solution for 10 s.
3. DCFH-DA staining
- Remove the drug-containing medium and wash once with DMEM.
- Add 500 µL of the DCFH-DA working solution into each well and incubate at 37 °C for 30 min.
- Remove the DCFH-DA working solution. Wash once with DMEM and 2x with 1x phosphate-buffered saline (PBS).
- Add 500 µL of 1x PBS to each well.
4. Imaging acquisition and intensity measurement
- Take representative fluorescent images for each well using the green fluorescent protein (GFP) channel on a fluorescence microscope.
- After taking images, remove PBS and add 200 µL of radioimmunoprecipitation assay (RIPA) buffer to each well.
- Incubate on ice for 5 min, then collect cell lysate into 1.5 mL tubes.
- Centrifuge at 21,130 x g for 10 min at 4 °C.
- Transfer 100 µL of the supernatant to a black 96-well plate and measure the fluorescence intensity using a fluorescence microplate reader at an excitation wavelength of 485 nm and an emission wavelength of 530 nm.
- Transfer 1 µL of the supernatant to a clear 96-well plate containing 100 µL of 1x protein assay solution to measure the protein concentration using the Bradford assay.
- Normalize fluorescence intensities with protein concentrations.
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Materials
Name | Company | Catalog Number | Comments |
2',7'-Dichlorofluorescein diacetate | Cayman Chemical, Ann Arbor, MI | 20656 | |
Doxorubicin hydrochloride | TCI America, Portland, OR | D4193-25MG | |
Dulbecco's Modified Eagle Medium | Corning, Corning, NY | 45000-304 | |
Invitrogen EVOS FL Auto Imaging System | Thermo Fisher Scientific Waltham, MA | AMAFD1000 | or any other fluorescence microscope |
Protein assay Bradford solution | Bio-Rad, Hercules, CA | 5000001 | |
SpectraMax M2 Microplate Reader | Molecular Devices, Radnor, PA | 89429-532 | or any other fluorescence microplate reader |
Ferrous Sulfate Heptahydrate | VWR, Radnor, PA | 97061-542 |