A functional genetic toolbox for human tissue-derived organoids

Authors:
Dawei Sun , Lewis Evans , Francesca Perrone , Vanesa Sokleva , Kyungtae Lim , Saba Rezakhani , Matthias Lutolf , Matthias Zilbauer , Emma L Rawlins 
In:
Source: eLife
Publication Date: (2021)
Issue: 10: e67886
Research Area:
Dermatology/Tissue Engineering
Gene Expression
Respiratory Research
Cells used in publication:
Epithelial, airway, human
Species: human
Tissue Origin: lung
Epithelial, intestinal, human (InEpC)
Species: human
Tissue Origin: intestine
Platform:
4D-Nucleofector® X-Unit
Experiment

human foetal lung organoids:  For testing transduction efficiency, organoids were dissociated into single cells using pre-warmed TrypLE Express (12605028, Thermo Fisher Scientific) at 37°C for 10 min. The reaction was terminated by adding Advanced DMEM/F12 (12634028, Thermo Fisher Scientific) and cells passed through a 30 µm cell strainer. 2 . 105 organoid single cells were re-suspended with Lonza P3 nucleofectionbuffer and 1 µl of pmaxGFP (Lonza) and transferred to 20 µl nucleofection cuvette (V4XP-3024, Lonza). Nucleofection was performed using Lonza 4D Nucleofector with X unit using the program EA125. After nucleofection, self-renewing medium supplemented with 10 µM Y-27632 (ROCK inhibitor, ROCKi, 688000, Merck) was added to dilute the P3 buffer. Cell mixture was then seeded in Matrigel in two wells of a 24-well plate and cultured with self-renewing medium with ROCKi (10 µM) for 72 hr before FACS analysis.

human foetal intestinal organoids: For gene targeting, 3 µl spCas9 (4 µg/µl) and 4.32 µl of SOX9 ssRNA (100 µM, Synthego) were mixed and incubated at RT for a minimum of 10 min in order to form ssRNPs. At the same time, human foetal intestinal organoids were dissociated into single cells, according to the protocol previously described for nucleofection. 6 . 105 cells were suspended using Lonza Nucleofection P3 buffer, mixed with 6 µg of SOX9 reporter repair template plasmid. The cell suspension was further mixed with pre-formed Cas9 RNPs and equally distributed into three 20 µl cuvettes. Nucleofection was performed using the program EA125 for human intestinal lung organoids. After nucleofection, intestinal organoid maintenance medium with ROCKi was added to dilute the P3 buffer. The cell mixture was then taken out and seeded in Matrigel in six wells of a 24-well plate and cultured with maintenance medium with 10 µM ROCKi for 1 week before flow cytometry.

Abstract

Human organoid systems recapitulate key features of organs offering platforms for modelling developmental biology and disease. Tissue-derived organoids have been widely used to study the impact of extrinsic niche factors on stem cells. However, they are rarely used to study endogenous gene function due to the lack of efficient gene manipulation tools. Previously, we established a human foetal lung organoid system (Nikolic et al., 2017). Here, using this organoid system as an example, we have systematically developed and optimised a complete genetic toolbox for use in tissue-derived organoids. This includes 'Organoid Easytag', our efficient workflow for targeting all types of gene loci through CRISPR-mediated homologous recombination followed by flow cytometry for enriching correctly targeted cells. Our toolbox also incorporates conditional gene knockdown or overexpression using tightly inducible CRISPR interference and CRISPR activation which is the first efficient application of these techniques to tissue-derived organoids. These tools will facilitate gene perturbation studies in tissue-derived organoids facilitating human disease modelling and providing a functional counterpart to many ongoing descriptive studies, such as the Human Cell Atlas Project.