Acta Veterinaria et Zootechnica Sinica ›› 2024, Vol. 55 ›› Issue (5): 2214-2225.doi: 10.11843/j.issn.0366-6964.2024.05.039

• BASIC VETERINARY MEDICINE • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Isolation, Identification of Luteal Cells from Cows during Pregnancy and Investigation of Their Culture Characteristics

FEI Guoqing, NING Zhiyuan, ZHAO Zefang, LIU Yanqiu, LIU Tengfei, LI Xian, CONG Rihua, CHEN Hong*, CHEN Shulin*   

  1. College of Veterinary Medicine, Northwest Agriculture and Forestry University, Yangling 712100, China
  • Received:2023-08-24 Online:2024-05-23 Published:2024-05-27

Abstract: The aim was to study the isolation, purification, characterization and in vitro culture biological properties of luteal cells from cows during pregnancy. In this study, luteal tissues of healthy Holstein cows during pregnancy were collected, and bovine luteal cells (BLCs) were isolated by type II and type IV collagenase digestion. High-purity BLCs were purified by Percoll discontinuous density gradient centrifugation. The purity of BLCs was identified by 3β-HSD live cell staining and oil red O lipid droplet staining. The specific marker proteins of BLCs, oxytocin and synaptophysin, were detected by immunohistochemical staining and immunofluorescence staining. Progesterone in cell culture supernatant was detected by ELISA. G-banding karyotype analysis of BLCs chromosomes, CCK-8 assay of BLC growth curve and serum-dependent flow cytometry to detect cell cycle analysis of BLCs in vitro culture characteristics. The results showed that: 1) A large number of high-purity BLCs could be obtained by one-time separation and purification using collagenase digestion and Percoll discontinuous density gradient centrifugation. 2) The results of 3β-HSD staining and oil red O staining showed that the isolated and purified BLCs had uniform cell types, and their morphology was typical epithelial cell-like cells with irregular polygons. The nucleus was large, the cytoplasm was rich, and small lipid droplets were dispersed. 3) Immunofluorescence results showed that BLCs could express specific markers of luteal cells such as oxytocin and synaptophysin; 4) The concentration of progesterone in the culture supernatant of BLCs was time-dependent. 5) Karyotype analysis showed that luteal cells were composed of 30 pairs of chromosomes, including 29 pairs of autosomes and a pair of XX sex chromosomes. CCK-8 and flow cytometry results showed that BLCs had stable proliferation activity during in vitro culture. In summary, this study successfully isolated and purified high-purity BLCs with typical biological characteristics, and sorted out a set of scientific and perfect methods for the separation, purification, identification and in vitro culture of BLCs, which can provide a stable cell model and technical reference for the study of luteal development, degeneration and functional regulation in vitro.

Key words: cow, luteal cells, isolation and culture, biological characterization

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