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Enhancing human iPSC-derived retinal organoids by incorporating microglia-like cells

ABSTRACT: Microglia are the primary resident immune cells in the retina. They regulate neuronal survival and synaptic pruning, which makes them essential for normal development. Following injury, they mediate adaptive responses and under pathological conditions can trigger neurodegeneration exacerbating the effect of the disease. Retinal organoids derived from human induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs) are increasingly used for a range of applications, including disease modelling, development of new therapies and in the study of retinogenesis. Despite their close resemblance to the in vivo retina, they lack some key physiological features including immune cells. To enhance the retinal organoid model, we engineered an hiPSC co-culture system containing the hiPSC-derived retinal organoids and hiPSC-derived microglia-like (iMG) cells and tested their retinal invasion capacity and function. We incorporated iMG into retinal organoids at 13 weeks and tested their effect on function and development at 15 and 21.5 weeks of differentiation. Our key findings showed that iMG cells were able to respond to endotoxin challenge in monocultures and when co-cultured with the organoids. Single cell RNA-Seq transcriptomic analyses, protein expression, electron microscopy imaging and electrophysiological recordings showed that retinal organoids developed normally, expressed key markers, and retained their ability to generate spiking activity in response to light. Thus, this new co-culture immunocompetent in vitro retinal model provides a platform with greater relevance to the in vivo human retina.

ORGANISM(S): Homo sapiens

PROVIDER: GSE173180 | GEO | 2023/05/17

REPOSITORIES: GEO

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Project description:The loss of cone photoreceptor cells, which are critical for optimal daylight vision, have the great impact on vision during retinal degenerations. Retinal differentiation of human induced pluripotent stem cell (hiPSC) sources could provide a renewable source of cone photoreceptors towards developing a cone cell replacement therapy to treat blindness. Demonstration of comparable gene expression profiles between human foetal and stem cell-derived cones at equivalent stages is required to progress the cell transplantation approach into the patient, as it is hypothesised stem cell-derived cones are required to show high levels of developmental recapitulation of the in vivo generated cones. In this study, the AAV2/9.pR2.1.GFP reporter was used to specifically label L/M-opsin cone photoreceptors in human foetal retinal samples, obtained from the MRC-Wellcome Trust Human Developmental Biology Resource, at a range of developmental stages. The L/M-opsin cone population represent the majority cone cell types in the adult human retina and are the only photoreceptors present within the fovea. Using fluorescence activated cell sorting, L/M-opsin GFP+ cones and GFP- retinal populations, alongside total foetal retinal samples containing all retinal cell tytpes, were isolated and processed for bulk RNA sequencing and downstream comparative analysis. Using DESeq2 differential gene expression analyses, statistically significant genes enriched within the GFP+ human foetal LM-opsin cone populations were determined which led to the identification of a cone enriched gene signature of human L/M-opsin cone photoreceptors. The AAV2/9.pR2.1.GFP reporter was applied to hiPSC-derived retinal cultures to isolate and process cone-like cell populations for RNA sequencing using the same strategy developed within the human foetal retina. Applying the cone enriched gene signature to the transcriptome of hiPSC-derived GFP+ samples at equivalent developmental stages revealed some expression similarities in genes found to be enriched within the late foetal L/M-opsin cone photoreceptors. This analysis overall revealed an intermediate stage of cone differentiation was achieved within the hiPSC-derived samples and the comparison to human foetal L/M-opsin gene express profiles suggesting further differentiation of hiPSC-derived sample is required.

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Enhancing human iPSC-derived retinal organoids by incorporating microglia-like cells

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