Use of standard U-bottom and V-bottom well plates to generate neuroepithelial embryoid bodies

Abstract

The use of organoids has become increasingly popular recently due to their self-organizing abilities, which facilitate developmental and disease modeling. Various methods have been described to create embryoid bodies (EBs) generated from embryonic or pluripotent stem cells but with varying levels of differentiation success and producing organoids of variable size. Commercial ultra-low attachment (ULA) V-bottom well plates are frequently used to generate EBs. These plates are relatively expensive and not as widely available as standard concave well plates. Here, we describe a cost-effective and low labor-intensive method that creates homogeneous EBs at high yield in standard V- and U-bottom well plates by applying an antiadherence solution to reduce surface attachment, followed by centrifugation to enhance cellular aggregation. We also explore the effect of different seeding densities, in the range of 1 to 11 ×103 cells per well, for the fabrication of neuroepithelial EBs. Our results show that the use of V-bottom well plates briefly treated with anti-adherent solution (for 5 min at room temperature) consistently yields functional neural EBs in the range of seeding densities from 5 to 11×103 cells per well. A brief post-seeding centrifugation step further enhances EB establishment. EBs fabricated using centrifugation exhibited lower variability in their final size than their noncentrifuged counterparts, and centrifugation also improved EB yield. The span of conditions for reliable EB production is narrower in U-bottom wells than in V-bottom wells (i.e., seeding densities between 7×103 and 11×103 and using a centrifugation step). We show that EBs generated by the protocols introduced here successfully developed into neural organoids and expressed the relevant markers associated with their lineages.We anticipate that the cost-effective and easily implemented protocols presented here will greatly facilitate the generation of EBs, thereby further democratizing the worldwide ability to conduct organoid-based research.

O2-sensitive microcavity arrays: A new platform for oxygen measurements in 3D cell cultures

“…Önder Yargı, Yıldız Technical University, Türkiye Ioannis Papantoniou, Faculty of Medicine, KU Leuven, Belgium 3D cell cultures can be classified into scaffold-free and scaffoldbased methods. Scaffold-free 3D cell cultures include (multi) cellular spheroids, which can be generated, e.g., by hanging drop methods, in spinner flasks, or multiwell plates that feature a non-adhesive U-or V-shaped bottom and which have become of widespread use (Buentello et al, 2021). Scaffold-based 3D cell culture models comprise hydrogels, made of extracellular matrix components or synthetic structures, such as polymer scaffolds (Justice et al, 2009;Badr-Eldin et al, 2022).…”