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Miniaturization of the Clonogenic Assay Using Confluence Measurement.

ABSTRACT: The clonogenic assay is a widely used method to study the ability of cells to 'infinitely' produce progeny and is, therefore, used as a tool in tumor biology to measure tumor-initiating capacity and stem cell status. However, the standard protocol of using 6-well plates has several disadvantages. By miniaturizing the assay to a 96-well microplate format, as well as by utilizing the confluence detection function of a multimode reader, we here describe a new and modified protocol that allows comprehensive experimental setups and a non-endpoint, label-free semi-automatic analysis. Comparison of bright field images with confluence images demonstrated robust and reproducible detection of clones by the confluence detection function. Moreover, time-resolved non-endpoint confluence measurement of the same well showed that semi-automatic analysis was suitable for determining the mean size and colony number. By treating cells with an inhibitor of clonogenic growth (PTC-209), we show that our modified protocol is suitable for comprehensive (broad concentration range, addition of technical replicates) concentration- and time-resolved analysis of the effect of substances or treatments on clonogenic growth. In summary, this protocol represents a time- and cost-effective alternative to the commonly used 6-well protocol (with endpoint staining) and also provides additional information about the kinetics of clonogenic growth.

SUBMITTER: Mayr C

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5877585 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Miniaturization of the Clonogenic Assay Using Confluence Measurement.

Mayr Christian C Beyreis Marlena M Dobias Heidemarie H Gaisberger Martin M Pichler Martin M Ritter Markus M Jakab Martin M Neureiter Daniel D Kiesslich Tobias T

International journal of molecular sciences 20180303 3

The clonogenic assay is a widely used method to study the ability of cells to 'infinitely' produce progeny and is, therefore, used as a tool in tumor biology to measure tumor-initiating capacity and stem cell status. However, the standard protocol of using 6-well plates has several disadvantages. By miniaturizing the assay to a 96-well microplate format, as well as by utilizing the confluence detection function of a multimode reader, we here describe a new and modified protocol that allows compr ...[more]

PMID: 29510509

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Project description:BackgroundThe clonogenic assay is a versatile and frequently used tool to quantify reproductive cell survival in vitro. Current state-of-the-art analysis relies on plating efficiency-based calculations which assume a linear correlation between the number of cells seeded and the number of colonies counted. The present study was designed to test the validity of this assumption and to evaluate the robustness of clonogenic survival results obtained.MethodsA panel of 50 established cancer cell lines was used for comprehensive evaluation of the clonogenic assay procedure and data analysis. We assessed the performance of plating efficiency-based calculations and examined the influence of critical experimental parameters, such as cell density seeded, assay volume, incubation time, as well as the cell line-intrinsic factor of cellular cooperation by auto-/paracrine stimulation. Our findings were integrated into a novel mathematical approach for the analysis of clonogenic survival data.ResultsFor various cell lines, clonogenic growth behavior failed to be adequately described by a constant plating efficiency, since the density of cells seeded severely influenced the extent and the dynamics of clonogenic growth. This strongly impaired the robustness of survival calculations obtained by the current state-of-the-art method using plating efficiency-based normalization. A novel mathematical approach utilizing power regression and interpolation of matched colony numbers at different irradiation doses applied to the same dataset substantially reduced the impact of cell density on survival results. Cellular cooperation was observed to be responsible for the non-linear clonogenic growth behavior of a relevant number of cell lines and the impairment of survival calculations. With 28/50 cell lines of different tumor entities showing moderate to high degrees of cellular cooperation, this phenomenon was found to be unexpectedly common.ConclusionsOur study reveals that plating efficiency-based analysis of clonogenic survival data is profoundly compromised by cellular cooperation resulting in strongly underestimated assay-intrinsic errors in a relevant proportion of established cancer cell lines. This severely questions the use of plating efficiency-based calculations in studies aiming to achieve more than semiquantitative results. The novel approach presented here accounts for the phenomenon of cellular cooperation and allows the extraction of clonogenic survival results with clearly improved robustness.

Project description:Sensitization of adenylyl cyclase (AC) signaling has been implicated in a variety of neuropsychiatric and neurologic disorders including substance abuse and Parkinson's disease. Acute activation of G?i/o-linked receptors inhibits AC activity, whereas persistent activation of these receptors results in heterologous sensitization of AC and increased levels of intracellular cAMP. Previous studies have demonstrated that this enhancement of AC responsiveness is observed both in vitro and in vivo following the chronic activation of several types of G?i/o-linked receptors including D2 dopamine and ? opioid receptors. Although heterologous sensitization of AC was first reported four decades ago, the mechanism(s) that underlie this phenomenon remain largely unknown. The lack of mechanistic data presumably reflects the complexity involved with this adaptive response, suggesting that nonbiased approaches could aid in identifying the molecular pathways involved in heterologous sensitization of AC. Previous studies have implicated kinase and Gb? signaling as overlapping components that regulate the heterologous sensitization of AC. To identify unique and additional overlapping targets associated with sensitization of AC, the development and validation of a scalable cAMP sensitization assay is required for greater throughput. Previous approaches to study sensitization are generally cumbersome involving continuous cell culture maintenance as well as a complex methodology for measuring cAMP accumulation that involves multiple wash steps. Thus, the development of a robust cell-based assay that can be used for high throughput screening (HTS) in a 384 well format would facilitate future studies. Using two D2 dopamine receptor cellular models (i.e. CHO-D2L and HEK-AC6/D2L), we have converted our 48-well sensitization assay (>20 steps 4-5 days) to a five-step, single day assay in 384-well format. This new format is amenable to small molecule screening, and we demonstrate that this assay design can also be readily used for reverse transfection of siRNA in anticipation of targeted siRNA library screening.

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Miniaturization of the Clonogenic Assay Using Confluence Measurement.

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Miniaturization of the Clonogenic Assay Using Confluence Measurement.

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