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Focus on Causality in ESC/iPSC-Based Modeling of Psychiatric Disorders.

ABSTRACT: Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have identified an increasing number of genetic variants that significantly associate with psychiatric disorders. Despite this wealth of information, our knowledge of which variants causally contribute to disease, how they interact, and even more so of the functions they regulate, is still poor. The availability of embryonic stem cells (ESCs) and the advent of patient-specific induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) has opened new opportunities to investigate genetic risk variants in living disease-relevant cells. Here, we analyze how this progress has contributed to the analysis of causal relationships between genetic risk variants and neuronal phenotypes, especially in schizophrenia (SCZ) and bipolar disorder (BD). Studies on rare, highly penetrant risk variants have originally led the field, until more recently when the development of (epi-) genetic editing techniques spurred studies on cause-effect relationships between common low risk variants and their associated neuronal phenotypes. This reorientation not only offers new insights, but also raises issues on interpretability. Concluding, we consider potential caveats and upcoming developments in the field of ESC/iPSC-based modeling of causality in psychiatric disorders.

SUBMITTER: Hoffmann A

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7072492 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Focus on Causality in ESC/iPSC-Based Modeling of Psychiatric Disorders.

Hoffmann Anke A Ziller Michael M Spengler Dietmar D

Cells 20200205 2

Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have identified an increasing number of genetic variants that significantly associate with psychiatric disorders. Despite this wealth of information, our knowledge of which variants causally contribute to disease, how they interact, and even more so of the functions they regulate, is still poor. The availability of embryonic stem cells (ESCs) and the advent of patient-specific induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) has opened new opportunities to investigat ...[more]

PMID: 32033412

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Project description:Dysregulated neurite outgrowth and synapse formation underlie many psychiatric disorders. Wolfram syndrome (WS) mainly caused by WFS1 deficiency is a monogenic genetic disease manifested by severe psychiatric disorders. Due to athe lack of proper human disease models, the underlying mechanism is poorly understood. Particularly, whether and how WFS1 deficiency affects synapse formation remain elusive. By mirroring the complexity of human brain development with cerebral organoids derived from human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) harboring WFS1 loss of function (LOF), we found that WFS1-deficient cerebral organoids not only recapitulated the neuronal loss phenotype in WS patients, but also exhibited significantly impaired synapse formation associated with reduced astrocytes, suggesting a defective structural basis for psychiatric disorders elicited by WFS1 deficiency. To further unravel the complexity of interplay between neurons and astrocytes, each neural cell type was respectively differentiated from hESCs harboring WFS1 LOF. WFS1 deficiency in neurons autonomously delayed neuronal differentiation with altered expressions of genes associated with psychiatric disorders, and impaired neurite outgrowth and reduced synapse formation associated with elevated cytosolic calcium. Interestingly, WFS1 deficiency in astrocytes decreased the expression of glutamate transporter EAAT2 and compromised glutamate uptake, causing reduced neurite outgrowth with increased cytosolic calcium when co-cultured with wildtype (WT) neurons, highlighting pathogenic role of WFS1-deficient astrocytes. Importantly, restoring EAAT2 expression in astrocytes by riluzole treatment significantly alleviated reduced neurite outgrowth phenotype in WT neurons co-cultured with WFS1-deficient astrocytes. Altogether, our study provides novel insights into how WFS1 deficiency affects neurite outgrowth and synapse formation, potentially contributing to predisposition of psychiatric disorders, and offers a potential strategy of therapy.

Dataset Information

Focus on Causality in ESC/iPSC-Based Modeling of Psychiatric Disorders.

Publications

Focus on Causality in ESC/iPSC-Based Modeling of Psychiatric Disorders.

Similar Datasets

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