Oocytes are prone to aneuploidy due to errors in chromosome segregation during meiotic maturation. Aneuploid eggs can cause infertility, miscarriages or developmental disorders like Down syndrome. Here, we describe methods to introduce materials of choice into oocytes and methods to study meiotic maturation and assess ploidy.
Mistakes in chromosome segregation lead to aneuploid cells. In somatic cells, aneuploidy is associated with cancer but in gametes, aneuploidy leads to infertility, miscarriages or developmental disorders like Down syndrome. Haploid gametes form through species-specific developmental programs that are coupled to meiosis. The first meiotic division (MI) is unique to meiosis because sister chromatids remain attached while homologous chromosomes are segregated. For reasons not fully understood, this reductional division is prone to errors and is more commonly the source of aneuploidy than errors in meiosis II (MII) or than errors in male meiosis 1,2.
In mammals, oocytes arrest at prophase of MI with a large, intact germinal vesicle (GV; nucleus) and only resume meiosis when they receive ovulatory cues. Once meiosis resumes, oocytes complete MI and undergo an asymmetric cell division, arresting again at metaphase of MII. Eggs will not complete MII until they are fertilized by sperm. Oocytes also can undergo meiotic maturation using established in vitro culture conditions 3. Because generation of transgenic and gene-targeted mouse mutants is costly and can take long periods of time, manipulation of female gametes in vitro is a more economical and time-saving strategy.
Here, we describe methods to isolate prophase-arrested oocytes from mice and for microinjection. Any material of choice may be introduced into the oocyte, but because meiotically-competent oocytes are transcriptionally silent 4,5 cRNA, and not DNA, must be injected for ectopic expression studies. To assess ploidy, we describe our conditions for in vitro maturation of oocytes to MII eggs. Historically, chromosome-spreading techniques are used for counting chromosome number 6. This method is technically challenging and is limited to only identifying hyperploidies. Here, we describe a method to determine hypo-and hyperploidies using intact eggs 7-8. This method uses monastrol, a kinesin-5 inhibitor, that collapses the bipolar spindle into a monopolar spindle 9 thus separating chromosomes such that individual kinetochores can readily be detected and counted by using an anti-CREST autoimmune serum. Because this method is performed in intact eggs, chromosomes are not lost due to operator error.
Microinjection of oocytes is a powerful method to study mechanisms that regulate meiotic maturation 10,11, 12, 13. This method provides an economical way to test hypotheses prior to making a large investment in developing transgenic and targeted mouse models. Oocyte collection and microinjection techniques require more time to master than typical cell biology procedures. Specific obstacles with collection often include controlling the mouth pipette, pulling the proper size glass pipette for collection and stripping of the somatic cells and increasing collection speed to minimize the time in which oocytes are outside of the incubator. We recommend practicing many times prior to doing experiments. Transferring oocytes between microdrops while maintaining the same number of cells is a great way to become comfortable with this method.
Cell death commonly occurs while learning microinjection. This could occur for a number of reasons, including injection of too large of a volume of material (i.e. the injection needle opening is too big), hitting the nucleus with the injection needle, piercing the opposite side of the oocyte or that the material injected is toxic to the oocyte. Practicing with injecting buffer into oocytes until your survival rate is at least 50% is key to mastering this technique. If oocytes fail to mature it is likely that the milrinone was not diluted enough. We recommend rinsing the oocytes through many large drops of milrinone-free CZB before maturation.
The ploidy analysis following microinjection is one of many assays to assess meiotic maturation. Other routine analyses we use in the laboratory include monitoring the kinetics by which the oocytes progress through meiosis, immunofluorescence to analyze spindle formation and chromosome alignment and egg activation or in vitro fertilization to assess the developmental consequences of the oocyte manipulation 14,15, 16, 17.
The authors have nothing to disclose.
This work was conducted in Richard M. Schultz’s laboratory. The authors would also like to acknowledge Michael Lampson for conceptualizing the centromere-counting assay and access to his confocal microscope. Teresa Chiang and Francesca Duncan assisted in optimizing the centromere-counting assay. Paula Stein is supported by HD022681 (to RMS) and Karen Schindler is supported by HD055822.
Table of specific reagents:
Name of Reagent | Company | Catalogue Number | Comments |
---|---|---|---|
Milrinone | Sigma-Aldrich | M4659 | Resuspend in DMSO at 2.5mM |
Mineral oil | Sigma-Aldrich | M5310 | Only use embryo-tested, sterile-filtered |
CREST autoserum | Immunovision | HCT-0100 | |
Sytox Green | Invitrogen | 57020 | |
Anti-human Alexa 594 | Invitrogen | A-11014 | |
Vectashield | Vector Laboratories | H-100 | |
Paraformaldehyde | Polysciences | 577773 | |
Albumin from bovine serum | Sigma-Aldrich | A3294 | |
PMSG | Calbiochem | 367222 | |
Monastrol | Sigma-Aldrich | M8515 | Resuspend in DMSO at 100mM |
Tween-20 | Sigma-Aldrich | 274348 | |
TritonX-100 | Sigma-Aldrich | X-100 |
Table of specific equipment:
Name of Equipment | Company | Catalogue Number | Comments |
---|---|---|---|
Mouthpiece | Biodiseno | MP-001-Y | |
Watchglass | Electron Microscopy Sciences | 70543-30 | |
Syringe | B-D | 309623 | 1ml, 27G1/2 |
60 mm Petri Dish | Falcon | 351007 | |
Glass Pasteur pipets | Fisher scientific | 13-678-200 | |
Side warmer | Fisher scientific | Any standard model | |
Dissection microscope | Any standard model | ||
Chamber Slide | Nunc | 177372 | |
Capillary Tubing | Drummond | 1-000-0500 | microcaps |
Pipette Puller | Flaming-Brown micropipette puller | Model P-97 | |
Inverted microscope | Nikon | Any standard model | |
Micromanipulators | Eppendorf | Any standard model | |
Picoinjector | Harvard Apparatus | Model PLI-100 | Any standard model |
CO2 tanks | For incubator | ||
N2 tank | For table and injector | ||
Anti-vibration table | Technical Manufacturing | Any standard model | |
Incubator | Any standard model | ||
Holding pipettes | Eppendorf | 930001015 | Vacutip |
Confocal microscope | Leica | Any standard model | |
Dissection tools | Fine science tools | Any standard model | |
Humidified chamber | We use tupperware | ||
Lid of 96 well plate | Nunc | 263339 | |
Microscope slides | Fisher scientific | 12-544-3 | |
Coverslips | Thomas scientific | 6663-F10 | Thickness will vary for particular microscopes |
Center well organ culture dish | Fisher scientific | 353037 | 60 X 15mm |