Peripheral blood mononuclear cells were isolated by a density gradient centrifugation over a
Ficoll-Hypaque (
Ficoll-Paque PLUS, GE Healthcare) from 20 ml of freshly venous blood from five healthy donors (HD), five relapsing MS patients (MS acute), and five remitting MS patients (MS stable). Cells were stained with pre-titrated Abs, to evaluate the expression of P2X7R within cluster of differentiation 14 (CD14)-positive cells. Briefly, PBMCs (1 × 10
6) were incubated with P2X7-extracellular epitope antibody (Alomone Labs, Jerusalem, Israel) for 30 min at 4°C. Cells were washed and stained with
goat anti-rabbit Alexa Fluor 488-conjugated antibody (Invitrogen, Life Technologies, Monza, MB, Italy), 30 min at 4°C. Cells were washed and stained with anti-CD14 PE (Dako, Aurogene, Rome, Italy) and
Live Dead Fixable Aqua Dead Cell Stain Kit (Invitrogen) for 30 min at 4°C.
Monocytes were isolated from PBMCs of HD by using Magnetic Separation with Negative Selection Columns (Miltenyi Biotec, Calderara di Reno, BO, Italy) according to the product manual. Purified monocytes (6 × 10
6) were cultured in serum-free RPMI 1640 with L-Glutamine, 50 U/ml penicillin, 50 µg/ml streptomycin in 96-well plates.
FACS analysis was performed with
FACS CyAn (Beckman Coulter, Pasadena, CA, USA) and with advanced flow cytometry software FlowJo (Tree Star, Ashaland, OR, USA).
Amadio S., Parisi C., Piras E., Fabbrizio P., Apolloni S., Montilli C., Luchetti S., Ruggieri S., Gasperini C., Laghi-Pasini F., Battistini L, & Volonté C. (2017). Modulation of P2X7 Receptor during Inflammation in Multiple Sclerosis. Frontiers in Immunology, 8, 1529.