Environment:
cell culture requires a sterile environment, so it needs a separate
room with the air purification system and a UV lamp to sterilize the
entire room.
Embryonic stem cells are grown at 37℃/ 5% CO2 / 95% humidity in
dishes coated with a feeder layer of mitotically inactivated mouse
embryonic fibroblasts. Here is how to culture mouse embryonic
fibroblasts to prepare the feeder layer.
Thaw a cryovial of MEF cells by quickly warming it in a 37℃ waterbath.
Aseptically
transfer the cell suspension to a sterile tube containing several ml of
warm MEF medium, gently mix and pellet the cells by centrifugation at
1000×g for 5min.
Aspirate
off the supernatant (removing DMSO in freezing medium) and resuspend
cells into 10ml of warm MEF medium and plate out in a 10cm
dish,incubating at 37℃ with 5% CO2 in the humidified incubator.
Medium should be changed everyday or must be changed when it turns orange.
In about 4 days, upon subconfluence, cells can be passaged or frozen or used for preparing feeder cell layer.
preparing the feeder cell layer
Aspirate
the MEF medium, add 10ml fresh MEF medium with 110μl mitomycin C
solution in dark, incubating the cells in the carbon dioxide incubator
with 37℃, 5% CO2 after mixing gently for 2 hours.
The
medium containing mitomycin C can be re-used (add the medium with
mitomycin C directly into dishes and incubate at 37℃ with 5% CO2 for 5h
in the humidified incubator) within a week, so the mitomycin C medium
can be collected in a sterile 15 ml tube and kept in 4℃ without light.
Wash the MEF cells extensively with PBS (without bivalent cations) for
2~3 times and dislodge the cells with 1ml trypsin/EDTA for about 3 min
in the humidified incubator.
Add 1ml MEF medium to stop trypsin/EDTA digestion, and collect the cells by low-speed centrifugation (1000 rpm for 5 min).
Remove
the supernatant, and resuspend the cells with 1ml MEF medium. Plate the
cells onto tissue culture dishes pretreated with 0.1% gelatin, in 10ml
MEF medium. Incubate the cells in the humidified incubator at 37℃ with
5% CO2 . (Pretreating with gelatin: add about 5ml 0.1% gelatin to a 10cm
dish, and incubate the dishes at 37℃ with 5% CO2 in the humidified
incubator. If the color of gelatin changes into yellow from red, remove
the gelatin).
The
cells can be used after they adhere to the dish. Feeder Cell Layer may
be used for up to 1 week, and the medium should be replaced with ES cell
culture medium immediately before being used. Check for the integrity
of feeder cell monolayer).
Thawing mouse embryonic stem cells (ES cells)
Thaw a cryovial of ES cells by quickly warming it in a 37℃ waterbath.
Aseptically
transfer the cell suspension to a sterile tube containing several ml of
warm ES medium, gently mix and pellet the cells by centrifugation at
1000×g for 5min.
Aspirate
off the supernatant (removal of DMSO in freezing medium) and resuspend
cells into 10ml of warm ES medium and plate out in a 10cm feeder plate,
incubating at 37℃ with 5% CO2 in the humidified incubator.
Medium should be changed everyday or must be changed when it turns orange .
In about 3~4 days, upon subconfluence,cells can be passaged or frozen or used for doing experiments.
Passagee of mouse embryonic stem cells
Aspirate
off medium, wash the cells 2 or 3 times with PBS (without bivalent
cations), add 1ml of trypsin/EDTA and incubate at 37℃ with 5 %CO2 in the
humidified incubator about 5min until cells float off.
Add 1ml of MEF medium to stop digesting, collect cells in a tube and centrifuge at 1000×g for 5min.
Aspirate
off the supernatant, resuspend cells in appropriate volume of ES medium
and distribute cells into several feeder plates depending on plate
format and splitting ratio (Splitting ratios for ES cells can vary from
1:1 to 1:10).
Freezing mouse embryonic stem cells
Aspirate
off medium, wash the cells 2 or 3 times with PBS (without bivalent
cations), add 1ml of trypsin/EDTA and incubate at 37℃ with 5 %CO2 in the
humidified incubator about 5min until cells float off.
Add 1ml of MEF medium to stop digesting, collect cells in a tube and centrifuge at 1000×g for 5min.
Aspirate
off the supernatant, resuspend cells in appropriate volume of
pre-cooled freezing medium and transfer into freezing vials (1ml per
vial). Gradient cooling: 4℃ for 20min, -20℃ for 20min, -80℃ for over
night and transfer cells to a liquid nitrogen for long term storage.
注意事項
Notes
Mitomycin C must be used in dark to avoid decomposition.
ES cells tend to grow together, and then chose appropriate size of dishes to thaw them.
Avoid overgrowing, otherwise ES cells will differentiate.
To avoid the contamination caused by water or serum, the serum should be checked for mycoplasma, and tested for contamination.
It
is better to refeed cells with fresh medium about 3 hours before
passaging or freezing to ensure cells' status and remove the dead cells
and impurities.