Project description:Kidney organoids have potential uses in disease modelling, drug screening and regenerative medicine. However, novel cost-effective techniques are needed to enable scale-up production of kidney cell types in vitro. We describe here a modified suspension culture method for the generation of kidney micro-organoids from human pluripotent stem cells. Each micro-organoid contains 6-10 nephrons surrounded by endothelial and stromal populations. Single cell transcriptional profiling confirmed the presence and transcriptional equivalence of all anticipated renal cell types consistent with a previous organoid culture method. Ligand-receptor mapping identified TGFβ signalling between stromal and epithelial cell types as likely to result in fibrotic changes observed with long-term culture. The addition of an ALK4 inhibitor suppressed stromal expansion, maintaining epithelial morphology and improving maturation. This suspension culture micro-organoid methodology resulted in a 3-4-fold increase in final cell yield compared to static culture, thereby representing an economical approach to the production of kidney cells for various biological applications.
Project description:Here, we used single-cell RNA-sequencing (scRNA-seq) to profile pluripotent stem cell derived human intestinal organoids (HIOs) grown in suspension culture after 28 days of in vitro growth. Grown in minigut media supplemented with EGF.
Project description:Kidney organoids have potential uses in disease modelling, drug screening and regenerative medicine. However, novel cost-effective techniques are needed to enable scaled-up production of kidney cell types in vitro We describe here a modified suspension culture method for the generation of kidney micro-organoids from human pluripotent stem cells. Optimisation of differentiation conditions allowed the formation of micro-organoids, each containing six to ten nephrons that were surrounded by endothelial and stromal populations. Single cell transcriptional profiling confirmed the presence and transcriptional equivalence of all anticipated renal cell types consistent with a previous organoid culture method. This suspension culture micro-organoid methodology resulted in a three- to fourfold increase in final cell yield compared with static culture, thereby representing an economical approach to the production of kidney cells for various biological applications.
Project description:Human iPSC-derived cardiomyocytes (hiPSC-CMs) have proven invaluable for cardiac disease modeling and cardiac regeneration. Challenges with quality, inter-batch consistency, cryopreservation and scale remain, reducing experimental reproducibility and clinical translation. Here, we report a robust stirred suspension cardiac differentiation protocol with careful functional characterization of the resulting hiPSC-CMs. In a bioreactor, the protocol produced 1.2E6/mL hiPSC-CMs with ~94% purity from 14 iPSC lines. Bioreactor-differentiated CMs (bCMs) showed high viability after cryo-recovery (>90%) and predominantly ventricular identity. Compared to standard monolayer-differentiated CMs (mCMs), bCMs had greater reproducibility and more mature functional properties, including pacing capture to 4 Hz and greater force production in 3D engineered heart tissues. In more readily available magnetically stirred spinner flasks, the protocol yielded 1.8E6/mL spinner-differentiated CMs (sCMs) with 94% purity. Differentiation scaled readily in spinner flasks, as a 3.8-fold increase in cultured volume yielded 3.4E6/ml sCMs. sCMs had intermediate functional properties between mCMs and bCMs. Minor protocol modifications generated the first bioreactor-derived cardiac organoids (bCOs) fully generated in suspension. These reproducible, scalable, and resource efficient approaches to generate cardiac cells and organoids with well-characterized properties will expand the applications of hiPSC-CMs.
Project description:This experiment compares the transcriptome profile of human spinal cord organoids generated from iPSCs in Matrigel, 1% alginate hydrogel, or 2% alginate hydrogel. Spinal cord organoids were generated from human iPSCs and then encapsulated in the respective hydrogels before further maturation. Organoids were harvested on days 30, 60, and 90 for each group. In addition to the differences between hydrogel groups, neuronal and glial markers at each time point were also assessed for the development of the organoids.
Project description:A method was developed to reproducibly produce neural retina and cortical brain regions from confluent cultures of stem cells. The spontaneously generated cortical organoids were isolated and cultured in suspension conditions for maturation. Proteomic analysis of both the original induced pluripotent stem cells and the cortical organoids demonstrated the increased presence of synaptic components, indicating maturity.