Project description:Huntington's disease (HD) and control GLAST-postive induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC)-derived astrocytes underwent single-nucleus RNA-sequencing to investigate cell state diversity across control and HD patient-derived astrocytes.
Project description:In late-onset sporadic Alzheimer’s disease (AD), the most prevalent and strongest risk factor is the ε4 allele of the apolipoprotein E (APOE4). To investigate the pathophysiological effects of the APOE4 genotype in the human cellular context, we generated isogenic iPSC-derived astrocytes bearing APOE4 alleles from APOE3 control iPSC. Next, to identify astrocytic APOE4-specific secreted proteomes, we performed a mass spectrometry using culture media from human astrocytes carrying APOE3 or APOE4.
Project description:Astrocytes interact closely with neurons and facilitate neuronal maturation and function by providing trophic support, regulating the extracellular environment, and engaging in a variety of inter-cellular signalling mechanisms. We have described the generation of human astrocytes and neurons from a common cortical progenitor pool, thereby recapitulating aspects of in vivo development. Firstly, we show that the iPSC-derived astrocytes exhibit many of the key molecular and functional hallmarks predicted of astrocytes. Secondly, we provide functional and transcriptomic analyses of the astrocytes’ capacity to interact with neurons both through rapid regulation of ongoing synaptic transmission as well as exerting pro-maturational effects on the synaptic networks. Transcriptional analysis included the comparison of the present RNA-seq of iPSC-derived astrocytes to other iPSC-derived astrocyte datasets as well as fetal and adult human astrocytes. We investigated differences in gene expression between our maturation-enhancing iPSC-astrocytes and iPSC-astrocytes previously shown to be unable to promote synaptic network maturation. By integrating transcriptomic data, functional genomic annotations and protein-protein interaction resources we support that astrocytic extracellular signalling is important for the ability of astrocytes to mediate functional neuronal maturation. This work provides a foundation for future investigations into astrocyte-neuron interactions in human health and disease.
Project description:We generated iPS cells knock out (KO) for two Aicardi Goutières syndrome genes, TREX1 and RNASEH2b to model the disease in a human neurological context. Their transcriptomes were analyzed at several differentiation stages: iPSC-derived Neural Stem Cells, iPSC-derived proinflammatory astrocytes and iPSC-derived neurons. We then evaluated when and to which extent the AGS-related transcriptional alterations arised in all KO and WT cells.
Project description:JC polyomavirus (JCPyV) is the causative agent of progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy (PML), a devastating demyelinating disease of the central nervous system that results in the widespread formation of lesions across the brain parenchyma. The virus is opportunistic and remains in a benign state in the kidneys and lymphoid organs of more than half of the global human adult population. However, in rare cases of severe or selective immune suppression, JCPyV can establish a lytic infection of glial cells in the brain. While PML has traditionally been characterized as a lytic infection of oligodendrocytes, more recent findings suggest an important role for astrocytes during the initial stages of disease. Because of the exceptional species and tissue specificity of the virus, appropriate models of JCPyV infection in the brain are lacking, thus hampering progress towards the development of novel antiviral strategies and biomarkers of disease activity. Towards the aim of biomarker development extracellular vesicles (EVs) were isolated from JCPyV-infected and mock-infected human iPSC-derived astrocytes and analyzed by LC-MS/MS. As a inflammatory control, EVs were also isolated from cytokine-stimulated iPSC-derived astrocytes. We demonstrate that the proteomic signature associated with EVs from JCPyV-infected astrocytes reflect what was observed on a cellular level for infected astrocytes while being strikingly different from that of EVs generated under inflammatory conditions.
Project description:Purpose: The goal of this study is to compare the NGS-derived from transcriptome profiling (RNA-seq) of human iPSC-derived astrocytes from control and Parkinson’s disease LRRK2 G2019S to gain insight into the mechanisms driving astrocyte's alterations in PD.
Project description:Purpose: The goal of this study is to compare the NGS-derived from transcriptome profiling (RNA-seq) of human iPSC, human iPSC-derived astrocytes from control and Parkinson’s disease LRRK2 G2019S, and human commercial astrocytes to gain insight into the identity of human iPSC-derived astrocytes in vitro during the differentiation process. Total RNA was assayed for quantity and quality using Qubit® RNA HS Assay (Life Technologies) and RNA 6000 Nano Assay on a Bioanalyzer 2100. The RNASeq libraries were prepared from total RNA using the TruSeq®Stranded mRNA LT Sample Prep Kit (Illumina Inc., Rev.E, October 2013). Briefly, 500ng of total RNA was used as the input material and was enriched for the mRNA fraction using oligo-dT magnetic beads. The mRNA was fragmented in the presence of divalent metal cations and at high temperature (resulting RNA fragment size was 80-250nt, with the major peak at 130nt). The second strand cDNA synthesis was performed in the presence of dUTP instead of dTTP, this allowed to achieve the strand specificity. The blunt-ended double stranded cDNA was 3´adenylated and Illumina indexed adapters were ligated. The ligation product was enriched with 15 PCR cycles and the final library was validated on an Agilent 2100 Bioanalyzer with the DNA 7500 assay. The libraries were sequenced on HiSeq2000 (Illumina, Inc) in paired-end mode with a read length of 2x76bp using TruSeq SBS Kit v4. We generated over 30 million paired-end reads for each sample in a fraction of a sequencing v4 flow cell lane, following the manufacturer’s protocol. Image analysis, base calling and quality scoring of the run were processed using the manufacturer’s software Real Time Analysis (RTA 1.18.66.3) and followed by generation of fastq.gz sequence files by CASAVA. Results: We found that transcriptome of human iPSC-derived astrocytes is similar to human commercial astrocytes than human iPSC. Conclusion: These results suggest that iPSC-derived astrocytes resemble human commercial astrocytes validating the differentiating protocol used.
Project description:We studied the impact of ZIKA virus infection on DNA methylation in whole organoids, organoid derived astrocytes, neurons neural progeniotors and hESC or iPSC derived astrocytes, neurons, neural progenotor cells