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Tissue morphology influences the temporal program of human cerebral organoids

ABSTRACT: Organs are the ensemble of different cell types in a complex architectural milieu. It is well-known that progression through fate decisions sets up the complex cellular makeup and architecture of an organ, but how that same architecture may impact on cell fate is less clear. We sought to examine this by taking advantage of the unique capabilities of organoids as a tractable in vitro model to interrogate how fate and form interact during organ development. Screening methodological variations encountered in the literature revealed that common protocol adjustments, such as small molecule patterning and exposure to exogenous extracellular matrix, impacted various aspects of morphology, from macro structure to tissue architecture. We demonstrated that overall morphology is a predictor of tissue architecture and that perturbing morphology results in changes in cytoarchitecture. Vice-versa, perturbing cytoarchitecture by mechanically redistributing cells in a random spatial conformation resulted in a simplified overall morphology. We next examined the impact of these morphological perturbations on cell fate through integrated snRNA-seq and spatial transcriptomics within the phenotypic landscape. Regardless of the specific protocol, organoids with more complex morphology better mimicked in vivo human fetal brain development than organoids with simplified morphology. Further, organoids with perturbed tissue architecture profiled with scRNA-seq over a time course experiment displayed aberrant temporal progression in cell fate, with cells being intermingled in both space and time. Finally, imparting a simplified morphology through physical encapsulation led to disrupted tissue cytoarchitecture and a similar abnormal temporal progression. These data not only point to the importance of tissue morphology in organoid fidelity compared to in vivo, but also demonstrate that cells require proper spatial coordinates in order to undergo the proper temporal trajectory of events.

ORGANISM(S): Homo sapiens

PROVIDER: GSE241543 | GEO | 2023/10/25

REPOSITORIES: GEO

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Project description:<p>Human brain organoids are emerging models to study human brain development and pathology as they recapitulate the development and characteristics of major neural cell types, and enable manipulation through an <em>in vitro</em> system. Over the past decade, with the advent of spatial technologies, mass spectrometry imaging (MSI) has become a prominent tool for metabolic microscopy, providing label-free, non-targeted molecular and spatial distribution information of the metabolites within tissue, including lipids. This technology has never been used for studies of brain organoids and here, we set out to develop a standardized protocol for preparation and mass spectrometry imaging of human brain organoids. We present an optimized and validated sample preparation protocol, including sample fixation, optimal embedding solution, homogenous deposition of matrices, data acquisition and processing to maximize the molecular information derived from mass spectrometry imaging. We focus on lipids in organoids, as they play critical roles during cellular and brain development. Using high spatial and mass resolution in positive- and negative-ion modes, we detected 260 lipids in the organoids. Seven of them were uniquely localized within the neurogenic niches or rosettes as confirmed by histology, suggesting their importance for neuroprogenitor proliferation. We observed a particularly striking distribution of ceramide-phosphoethanolamine CerPE 36:1; O2 restricted within rosettes and of phosphatidyl-ethanolamine PE 38:3, which was distributed throughout the organoid tissue but not in rosettes. This suggests that ceramide in this particular lipid species might be important for neuroprogenitor biology, while its removal may be important for terminal differentiation of their progeny. Overall, our study establishes the first optimized experimental pipeline and data processing strategy for mass spectrometry imaging of human brain organoids, allowing direct comparison of lipid signal intensities and distributions in these tissues. Further, our data shed new light on the complex processes that govern brain development by identifying specific lipid signatures that may play a role in metabolic cell fate trajectories. mass spectrometry imaging thus has great potential in advancing our understanding of early brain development as well as disease modeling and drug discovery.</p>