Summary

Génération améliorée de cardiomyocytes induite en utilisant une construction polycistroniques Exprimant rapport optimal de Gata4, MEF2C et Tbx5

Published: November 13, 2015
doi:

Summary

We describe here a protocol for the generation of iCMs using retrovirus-mediated delivery of Gata4, Tbx5 and Mef2c in a polycistronic construct. This protocol yields a relatively homogeneous population of reprogrammed cells with improved efficiency and quality and is valuable for future studies of iCM reprogramming.

Abstract

La conversion directe des fibroblastes cardiaques (SCF) en cardiomyocytes induites (ICMS) détient un grand potentiel pour la médecine régénérative en offrant des stratégies alternatives pour le traitement de la maladie de coeur. Cette conversion a été obtenue par expression forcée de facteurs tels que définis Gata4 (G), MEF2C (M) et Tbx5 (T). Traditionnellement, ICMS sont générés par un cocktail de virus exprimant ces facteurs individuels. Cependant, la reprogrammation efficacité est relativement faible et la plupart de l'in vitro G, M, T-fibroblastes transduits ne deviennent pas entièrement reprogrammés, ce qui rend difficile l'étude des mécanismes de reprogrammation. Nous avons récemment montré que la stoechiométrie de G, M, T est cruciale pour l'efficacité de reprogrammation ICM. Une stoechiométrie optimale de G, M, T avec relativement haut niveau de M et de faibles niveaux de G et T obtenus à l'aide de notre vecteur de MGT polycistronique (ci-après dénommé MGT) a augmenté de manière significative l'efficacité de la reprogrammation et amélioration de la qualité iCM in vitro. Ici nous fournissons une description détaillée de la méthodologie utilisée pour générer ICMS avec MGT construction à partir de fibroblastes cardiaques. Isolement des fibroblastes cardiaques, la génération du virus pour la reprogrammation et l'évaluation du processus de reprogrammation sont également inclus afin de fournir une plate-forme pour la production efficace et reproductible du SGCI.

Introduction

Cardiovascular disease remains the leading cause of death worldwide, accounting for 17.3 million deaths per year1. Loss of cardiomyocytes resulting from myocardial infarction (MI) or progressive heart failure is a major cause of morbidity and mortality2. Due to limited regenerative capacity, adult mammalian hearts usually suffer from impaired pump function and heart failure following injury3-6. As such, efficient (re)generation of cardiomyocytes in vivo and in vitro for treatment of heart disease and for disease modeling is a critical issue needing to be addressed.

Recent development of direct reprogramming, which directly reprograms cells from one differentiated phenotype to another without transitioning through the pluripotent state, offers a promising alternative approach for regenerative medicine. The mammalian heart contains abundant cardiac fibroblasts (CFs), which account for approximately half of the cells in heart and massively proliferate upon injury7-9. Thus, the vast pool of CFs could serve as an endogenous source of new CMs for regenerative therapy if they could be directly reprogrammed into functional CMs. It has been shown that a combination of transcription factors, such as Gata4 (G), Mef2c (M) and Tbx5 (T), with or without microRNAs or small molecules can reprogram fibroblasts into iCMs10-26. Importantly, this conversion can also be induced in vivo, and results in an improvement in cardiac function and a reduction in scar size in an infarcted heart16,27-29. These studies indicate that direct cardiac reprogramming may be a potential avenue to heal an injured heart. However, the low efficiency of iCM reprogramming has become a major hurdle for further mechanistic studies. In addition, the reproducibility of cardiac reprogramming is another controversial issue of this technology11,30,31.

Very recently, we generated a complete set of polycistronic constructs encoding G,M,T in all possible splicing orders with identical 2A sequences in a single mRNA. These polycistronic constructs yielded varied G, M and T protein expression levels, which led to significantly different reprogramming efficiency25. The most efficient construct, named MGT, which showed a relatively high Mef2c and low Gata4 and Tbx5 expression, significantly improved reprogramming efficiency and produced large amounts of iCMs with CM markers expression, robust calcium oscillation and spontaneous beating25. Moreover, by using MGT polycistronic construct, our study avoided the use of multiple vectors and generated cells with homogenous expression ratio of G,M,T, thus providing an improved platform for cardiac reprogramming research. To increase experimental reproducibility, here we describe in detail how to isolate fibroblasts, produce retrovirus carrying MGT cassette, generate iCMs and evaluate the reprogramming efficiency.

Protocol

Le protocole décrit ici utilise des souris néonatales. Les soins et expériences sont réalisées en conformité avec les lignes directrices établies par la Division de médecine de laboratoire animale (DLAM) à l'Université de Caroline du Nord, Chapel Hill. 1. Préparation des tampons et des médias Préparer fibroblastes (FB) milieu: Supplément de 500 ml de milieu IMDM avec 100 ml de sérum fœtal bovin (FBS) et 6 …

Representative Results

Les étapes de reprogrammation sont résumés par schématique sur la figure 1. Après MGT transduction, l'expression de GFP dans la reprogrammation des cellules peuvent être détectés dès le jour 3. sélection puromycine de cellules transduites commence au jour 3 et est mis à jour pendant les deux premières semaines si PMX-puro -MGT construction est utilisée. Le jour 10 au jour 14, l'expression des marqueurs cardiaques comme cTnT et αActinin pu être détecté à la fois…

Discussion

Pour réussir une génération iCM lors de l'utilisation de ce protocole, il ya plusieurs facteurs importants qui ont une incidence sur l'efficacité globale. Notamment les conditions de fibroblastes de départ et la qualité de l'encodage de rétrovirus MGT peuvent grandement affecter l'efficacité de reprogrammation.

Il est important de générer des fibroblastes aussi frais et sain que possible. Pour la méthode de explant, les fibroblastes peuvent être utilisés avant le…

Disclosures

The authors have nothing to disclose.

Acknowledgements

We are grateful for expert technical assistance from the UNC Flow Cytometry Core and UNC Microscopy Core. We thank members of the Qian lab and the Liu lab for helpful discussions and critical reviews of the manuscript. This study was supported by NIH/NHLBI R00 HL109079 grant to Dr. Liu and American Heart Association (AHA) Scientist Development Grant 13SDG17060010 and the Ellison Medical Foundation (EMF) New Scholar Grant AG-NS-1064-13 to Dr. Qian.

Materials

anti-cardiac troponin T Thermo Scientific MS-295-PO 1:200 for FACS and 1:400 for ICC
anti-GFP Life Technologies A11122 1:500 for both FACS and ICC
anti- aActinin Sigma-Aldrich A7811 1:500 for both FACS and ICC
anti-Connexin43 Sigma-Aldrich C6219 1:500 for  ICC
anit-Mef2c Abcam ab64644 1:1000 for ICC 
anti-Gata4 Santa Cruz Biotechnology sc-1237 1:200 for ICC
anti-Tbx5 Santa Cruz Biotechnology sc-17866 1:200 for ICC
Alexa Fluor 488–conjugated donkey anti-rabbit IgG Jackson ImmunoResearch Inc 711-545-152 1:500 for both FACS and ICC
Alexa Fluor 647–conjugated donkey anti-mouse IgG Jackson ImmunoResearch Inc 715-605-150 1:500 for both FACS and ICC
Cytofix/Cytoperm kit for intracellular staining BD Biosciences 554722
Rhod-3 Calcium Imaging Kit Life Technologies R10145
Thy1.2 microbeads Miltenyi Biotec 130-049-101
Vectashield solution with DAPI Vector labs H-1500
FBS Sigma-Aldrich F-2442
Trypsin-EDTA (0.05%) Corning 25-052
PRMI1640 medium Life Technologies 11875-093
B27 supplement Life Technologies 17504-044
IMDM Life Technologies 12440-053
Opti-MEM Reduced Serum Medium Life Technologies 31985-070
M199 medium Life Technologies 10-060
DMEM, high glucose Life Technologies 10-013
Penicillin-streptomycin Corning 30-002
Non-essential amino acids Life Technologies 11130-050
Lipofectamine 2000 Life Technologies 11668500
blasticidin Life Technologies A11139-03
puromycin Life Technologies A11138-03
Collagenase II Worthington LS004176
polybrene Millipore TR-1003-G
Triton X-100 Fisher BP151-100
CaCl2 Sigma-Aldrich C7902
HEPES Sigma-Aldrich H4034
NaCl Sigma-Aldrich BP358-212
KCl Sigma-Aldrich PX1405
Na2HPO4 Sigma-Aldrich S7907
Glucose Sigma-Aldrich G6152
Bovine serum albumin Fisher 9048-46-8
paraformaldehyde EMS 15714
Retrovirus Precipitation Solution ALSTEM VC-200
0.4%Trypan blue solution Sigma-Aldrich T8154
gelatin Sigma-Aldrich G1393
Dulbecco's PBS without CaCl2 and MgCl2 (D-PBS, 1x) Sigma-Aldrich D8537
HBSS (Hanks Balanced Salt Solution) Corning 21022
LS column Miltenyi Biotec 130-042-401
0.45 μm cellulose acetate filter  Thermo Scientific 190-2545
24-well plates Corning 3524
10cm Tissue culture dishes  Thermo Scientific 172958
60mm center well culture dish   Corning 3260
96 Well Clear V-Bottom 2mL Polypropylene Deep Well Plate Denville Scientific P9639
Polystyrene round-bottom tubes with cell-strainer cap  BD Biosciences 352235
Centrifuge Eppendorf 5810R
Vortexer MINI VWR 58816-121
EVOS® FL Auto Cell Imaging System Life Technologies AMAFD1000
MACS MultiStand Miltenyi Biotec 130-042-303
MidiMACS Separator Miltenyi Biotec 130-042-302
Round glass cover slip Electron Microscopy Sciences 72195-15

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Cite This Article
Wang, L., Liu, Z., Yin, C., Zhou, Y., Liu, J., Qian, L. Improved Generation of Induced Cardiomyocytes Using a Polycistronic Construct Expressing Optimal Ratio of Gata4, Mef2c and Tbx5. J. Vis. Exp. (105), e53426, doi:10.3791/53426 (2015).

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