A trypsin-based method for isolating leukocytes from human choriodecidua suitable for immunophenotyping and transcriptome studies.

Leukocytes found at the human maternal-fetal interface participate in the inflammatory process associated with both preterm and term labor; therein, effective methods for their isolation that allow further phenotypic and functional analyses are necessary. Leukocyte isolation is usually carried out through scraping or enzyme digestion of the choriodecidua, however both methods usually limit the use of downstream immunophenotyping or transcriptomic techniques. Here we describe an isolation method based on gentle trypsin digestion that yields a leukocyte-enriched cell mixture with high lymphocyte viability, although less viable myeloid cells. We show that the method does not compromise cell surface markers since isolated leukocytes are suitable for flow cytometry; and that high quality RNA can be obtained from these cells for qRT-PCR and microarray analyses.