Project description:Cerebral organoids â three-dimensional cultures of human cerebral tissue derived from pluripotent stem cells â have emerged as models of human cortical development. However, the extent to which in vitro organoid systems recapitulate neural progenitor cell proliferation and neuronal differentiation programs observed in vivo remains unclear. Here we use single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) to dissect and compare cell composition and progenitor-to-neuron lineage relationships in human cerebral organoids and fetal neocortex. Covariation network analysis using the fetal neocortex data reveals known and novel interactions among genes central to neural progenitor proliferation and neuronal differentiation. In the organoid, we detect diverse progenitors and differentiated cell types of neuronal and mesenchymal lineages, and identify cells that derived from regions resembling the fetal neocortex. We find that these organoid cortical cells use gene expression programs remarkably similar to those of the fetal tissue in order to organize into cerebral cortex-like regions. Our comparison of in vivo and in vitro cortical single cell transcriptomes illuminates the genetic features underlying human cortical development that can be studied in organoid cultures. 734 single-cell transcriptomes from human fetal neocortex or human cerebral organoids from multiple time points were analyzed in this study. All single cell samples were processed on the microfluidic Fluidigm C1 platform and contain 92 external RNA spike-ins. Fetal neocortex data were generated at 12 weeks post conception (chip 1: 81 cells; chip 2: 83 cells) and 13 weeks post conception (62 cells). Cerebral organoid data were generated from dissociated whole organoids derived from induced pluripotent stem cell line 409B2 (iPSC 409B2) at 33 days (40 cells), 35 days (68 cells), 37 days (71 cells), 41 days (74 cells), and 65 days (80 cells) after the start of embryoid body culture. Cerebral organoid data were also generated from microdissected cortical-like regions from H9 embryonic stem cell derived organoids at 53 days (region 1, 48 cells; region 2, 48 cells) or from iPSC 409B2 organoids at 58 days (region 3, 43 cells; region 4, 36 cells).

Project description:Bipolar Disorder (BD) is a complex neuropsychiatric disorder that is characterized by intermittent episodes of mania and depression and, without treatment, 15% of patients commit suicide1. Hence, among all diseases, BD has been ranked by the WHO as a top disorder of morbidity and lost productivity2. Previous neuropathological studies have revealed a series of alterations in the brains of BD patients or animal models3, such as reduced glial cell number in the patient prefrontal cortex4, up-regulated activities of the PKA/PKC pathways5-7, and changes in dopamine/5-HT/glutamate neurotransmission systems8-11. However, the roles and causation of these changes in BD are too complex to exactly determine the pathology of the disease; none of the current BD animal models can recapitulate both the manic and depressive phenotypes or spontaneous cycling of BD simultaneously12,13. Furthermore, while some patients show remarkable improvement with lithium treatment, for yet unknown reasons, other patients are refractory to lithium treatment. Therefore, developing an accurate and powerful biological model has been a challenge for research into BD. The development of induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) technology has provided such a new approach. Here, we developed a human BD iPSC model and investigated the cellular phenotypes of hippocampal dentate gyrus neurons derived from the patient iPSCs. Using patch clamp recording, somatic Ca2+ imaging and RNA-seq techniques, we found that the neurons derived from BD patients exhibited hyperactive action potential (AP) firing, up-regulated expression of PKA/PKC/AP and mitochondria-related genes. Moreover, lithium selectively reversed these alterations in the neurons of patients who responded to lithium treatment. Therefore, hyper-excitability is one endophenotype of BD that is probably achieved through enhancement in the PKA/PKC and Na+ channel signaling systems, and our BD iPSC model can be used to develop new therapies and drugs aimed at clinical treatment of this disease.

Project description:Bipolar Disorder (BD) is a complex neuropsychiatric disorder that is characterized by intermittent episodes of mania and depression and, without treatment, 15% of patients commit suicide1. Hence, among all diseases, BD has been ranked by the WHO as a top disorder of morbidity and lost productivity2. Previous neuropathological studies have revealed a series of alterations in the brains of BD patients or animal models3, such as reduced glial cell number in the patient prefrontal cortex4, up-regulated activities of the PKA/PKC pathways5-7, and changes in dopamine/5-HT/glutamate neurotransmission systems8-11. However, the roles and causation of these changes in BD are too complex to exactly determine the pathology of the disease; none of the current BD animal models can recapitulate both the manic and depressive phenotypes or spontaneous cycling of BD simultaneously12,13. Furthermore, while some patients show remarkable improvement with lithium treatment, for yet unknown reasons, other patients are refractory to lithium treatment. Therefore, developing an accurate and powerful biological model has been a challenge for research into BD. The development of induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) technology has provided such a new approach. Here, we developed a human BD iPSC model and investigated the cellular phenotypes of hippocampal dentate gyrus neurons derived from the patient iPSCs. Using patch clamp recording, somatic Ca2+ imaging and RNA-seq techniques, we found that the neurons derived from BD patients exhibited hyperactive action potential (AP) firing, up-regulated expression of PKA/PKC/AP and mitochondria-related genes. Moreover, lithium selectively reversed these alterations in the neurons of patients who responded to lithium treatment. Therefore, hyper-excitability is one endophenotype of BD that is probably achieved through enhancement in the PKA/PKC and Na+ channel signaling systems, and our BD iPSC model can be used to develop new therapies and drugs aimed at clinical treatment of this disease. total RNAseq from neurons generated from BD patient-specific iPS cells

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REST and Impaired Neural Stress Resistance in Bipolar Disorder

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