Monitoring Changes in Human Umbilical Vein Endothelial Cells upon Viral Infection Using Impedance-Based Real-Time Cell Analysis
Summary
The current study describes a protocol to monitor the changes in human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVECs) during viral infection using a real-time cell analysis (RTCA) system.
Abstract
Endothelial cells line the inner surface of all blood and lymphatic vessels, creating a semi-permeable barrier regulating fluid and solute exchange between blood or lymph and their surrounding tissues. The ability of a virus to cross the endothelial barrier is an important mechanism that facilitates virus dissemination in the human body. Many viruses are reported to alter endothelial permeability and/or cause endothelial cell barrier disruption during infection, which is able to cause vascular leakage. The current study describes a real-time cell analysis (RTCA) protocol, using a commercial real-time cell analyzer to monitor endothelial integrity and permeability changes during Zika virus (ZIKV) infection of the human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVECs). The impedance signals recorded before and after ZIKV infection were translated to cell index (CI) values and analyzed. The RTCA protocol allows the detection of transient effects in the form of cell morphological changes during a viral infection. This assay could also be useful for studying changes in the vascular integrity of HUVECs in other experimental setups.
Introduction
Endothelial cells (ECs) line the inner surface of all blood and lymphatic vessels. They are connected by adherens, tight gap junctions, creating a semi-permeable barrier between blood or lymph and the surrounding tissues1,2. The intact endothelial cell-cell junctions are critical for regulating the transport of macromolecules, solutes, and fluids, crucial for the physiological activities of the corresponding tissues and organs3. The endothelial barrier is dynamic and modulated by specific stimuli4. Disruption or loss of endothelial barrier function is a hallmark of disease pathophysiology in acute and chronic inflammation in the pathogenesis of many diseases5,6,7, including viral infection8,9,10,11. For flaviviruses, it was found that the non-structural protein NS1 can alter endothelial permeability, for example, via disruption of the endothelial glycocalyx-like layer as a result of increased expression and activation of cathepsin L, sialidases, and endoglycosidase heparinase9. In the disease state, the integrity of the endothelial monolayer is affected, and cell-cell junctions are disrupted, which may lead to endothelial injury and dysfunction12 and eventually widespread pathological manifestations across multiple organ systems13,14. Viral infection of ECs results in changes in the cell signaling pathways and cellular gene expression profile, which may affect the fluid barrier functions, cause disruption of the ECs, and induce vascular leakage10,15. Zika virus (ZIKV) infection of ECs has been found to disrupt the junctional integrity that causes changes in vascular permeability and lead to endothelial barrier dysfunction, resulting in vascular leakage10,15. Studies have shown that ZIKV is linked to severe birth defects; however, not much is known about the exact mechanism by which this occurs16,17. Understanding endothelial barrier changes during an infection is therefore critical to understand the disease mechanism.
ECs are currently used as an important experimental in vitro vascular model system for various physiological and pathological processes18,19,20,21. Human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVECs) have been extensively used as a primary, non-immortalized cell system to study the vascular endothelium and vascular biology in vitro22,23,24,25. HUVECs were first isolated for in vitro culture in the early 1970s from the umbilical vein of the human umbilical cord26. HUVECs have a cobblestone-like morphology that is easily made to proliferate in the laboratory. Due to shear stress after being maintained for long periods in the confluent state, elongation of the cell shape is observed. HUVECs can be characterized by the presence of Weibel and Palade bodies (WPB), pinocytic vesicles, small amounts of fibrils located near the nucleus, mitochondria with tubular shapes which rarely show ramifications, an ellipsoid nucleus with a fine granular pattern of condensed chromatin, and one to three nucleoli present in each nucleus27. Although HUVECs show numerous morphological characteristics, the identification of HUVECs cannot be achieved by optic examination alone. Assays, such as immunofluorescence staining of vascular endothelial (VE)-cadherin, is commonly used for the monitoring of vascular integrity in HUVECs28,29,30,31.
This study describes the real-time cell analysis (RTCA) protocol of the infection of HUVECs. The RTCA system uses specialized gold-coated plates containing microelectrodes that provide a conductive surface for the cell attachment. When the cells attach to the microelectrode surface, a barrier that impedes electron flow through the microelectrodes is formed. Measurement of the impedance generated by microelectrodes can be used to gain information on some cellular processes, including cell attachments, proliferation, and migration32. The reported assay is an impedance-based cellular assay that, coupled with a real-time cell analyzer, provides continuous measurement of live cell proliferation, morphology changes (such as cell shrinking) and cell attachment quality in a noninvasive and label-free manner. In this study, the real-time cell analyzer is used to monitor the endothelial integrity and morphological changes of HUVECs during ZIKV infection. Briefly, the instrument measures electron flow transmitted in specialized gold-microelectrode-coated microtiter plates in the presence of a culture medium (electrically conductive solution). Cell adherence or changes in cell number and morphology disturb the electron flow and cause impedance variations that can be captured by the instrument (Supplementary Figure 1). The difference between HUVEC growth, proliferation, and adherence before and after ZIKV infection is recorded in real time by an electrical impedance signal and then translated to cell index (CI) value. The CI value from the pre-infection is used as the baseline for CI value normalization. The changes in CI values reflect cellular morphological changes or cell adherence loss upon the infection33. The study results show that the RTCA protocol allows the detection of transient effects or cell morphological changes during viral infection compared to an endpoint assay, such as immunofluorescence staining of VE-cadherin. The RTCA method could be useful for analyzing the HUVEC vascular integrity changes upon infection by other viruses.
Protocol
Representative Results
Discussion
Cytocidal viral infection in permissive cells is usually associated with substantial changes in cell morphology and biosynthesis36. The virus-induced cellular morphological changes, such as cell shrinking, cell enlargement, and/or syncytia formation, are also known as cytopathic effects (CPEs), characteristic to certain viral infections37. In ECs, the CPE was described as the destruction of cells and breakdown of the tight junctions in between each EC, hence causing the bre…
Disclosures
The authors have nothing to disclose.
Acknowledgements
This research received support from the Ministry of Higher Education Malaysia under the Higher Institution Centre of Excellence (HICoE) program (MO002-2019) and funding under the Long-Term Research Grant Scheme (LRGS MRUN Phase 1: LRGS MRUN/F1/01/2018).
Materials
| 1.5 mL microcentrifuge tube | Nest | 615601 | |
| 37 °C incubator with 5% CO2 | Sanyo | MCO-18AIC | |
| 75 cm2 tissue culture flask | Corning | 430725U | |
| Antibiotic solution penicillin-streptomycin (P/S) | Sciencell | 0503 | |
| Biological safety cabinet, Class II | Holten | HB2448 | |
| Collagen Type 1 | SIgma-Aldrich | C3867 | |
| Endothelial cell growth supplement (ECGS) | Sciencell | 1052 | |
| Endothelial cell medium (ECM) | Sciencell | 1001 | |
| E-plate 96 | Agilent Technologies, Inc. | 05232368001 | |
| Fetal bovine serum (FBS) | Sciencell | 0025 | |
| Hanks' Balanced Salt Solution (HBSS) | Sigma-Aldrich | H9394 | |
| Hemocytometer | Laboroptik LTD | Neubauer improved | |
| Human Umbilical Vein Endothelial Cells (HUVECs) | Sciencell | 8000 | |
| Inverted microscope | ZEISS | TELAVAL 31 | |
| Latitude 3520 Laptop | Dell | – | |
| Multichannel micropipette (10 – 100 µL) | Eppendorf | 3125000036 | |
| Multichannel micropipette (30 – 300 µL) | Eppendorf | 3125000052 | |
| Reagent reservior | Tarsons | T38-524090 | |
| RTCA resistor plate 96 | Agilent Technologies, Inc. | 05232350001 | |
| RTCA Software Pro (Version 2.6.1) | Agilent Technologies, Inc. | 5454433001 | |
| Single channel pipettes (10 – 100 µL) | Eppendorf | 3123000047 | |
| Single channel pipettes (100 – 1000 µL) | Eppendorf | 3123000063 | |
| Single channel pipettes (20 – 200 µL) | Eppendorf | 3123000055 | |
| xCELLigence Real-time cell analyzer SP (Model: W380) | Agilent Technologies, Inc. | 00380601030 | https://www.agilent.com/en/product/cell-analysis/real-time-cell-analysis/rtca-analyzers/xcelligence-rtca-sp-single-plate-741232 |
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