Project description:This SuperSeries is composed of the following subset Series: GSE40793: Conversion of human fibroblasts into vascular cells (gene expression) GSE40909: Conversion of human fibroblasts into vascular cells (methylation) Refer to individual Series
Project description:Direct conversion from fibroblasts to neurons is a potential cell replacement therapy for neurological disorders, and a variety of combinations of transcription factors have been tried. We notice that the efficiency of conversion from aging fibroblasts was much lower than in early stage cells, which is consistent with the notion that cellular senescence impairs conversion of fibroblasts to neurons. Here, we found that the transient knockdown of the p16Ink4a/p19Arf locus was sufficient to convert human fibroblasts to neurons. Futhermore, expression of hTERT alone, another mechanism behind immortalization, also induced neuron conversion. Our results show that the acquisition of immortality is a crucial step for the conversion of human fibroblasts into induced neurons.
Project description:Direct conversion from fibroblasts to neurons is a potential cell replacement therapy for neurological disorders, and a variety of combinations of transcription factors have been tried. We notice that the efficiency of conversion from aging fibroblasts was much lower than in early stage cells, which is consistent with the notion that cellular senescence impairs conversion of fibroblasts to neurons. Here, we found that the transient knockdown of the p16Ink4a/p19Arf locus was sufficient to convert human fibroblasts to neurons. Futhermore, expression of hTERT alone, another mechanism behind immortalization, also induced neuron conversion. Our results show that the acquisition of immortality is a crucial step for the conversion of human fibroblasts into induced neurons. Transient knockdown of p16/p19 or p53 expression or exogenous overexpression of hTERT can induce primary fibroblasts to immortality. In the following, treated cells were cultured in neuron-induction medium. We can observe the morphology change and detect the neuronal markers. Also, some of the induced neurons could generate action potentials and neurotransmitter-induced currents in optimal conditions.
Project description:In order to find the difference between human lung tissue-derived fibroblasts and human vascular adventitial fibroblasts for enhancing tumor formation ablity of human lung adenocarcinoma cell line A549, we found that human vascular adventitial fibroblasts enhance A549 tumor formation in vivo compared to human lung tissue-derived fibroblasts. To find the responsible genes for this phenomena, we used microarray analysis to find the expression difference between lung tissue-derived fibroblasts and vascular adventitial fibroblas Cultured human lung tissue-derived fibroblasts and human vascular adventitial fibroblasts were analyzed in replicates.
Project description:Direct cell conversion is now expected to apply to therapeutic purposes. Although that has been succeeded in several cell types, the mechanism or general way to identify the key transcription factors are still unclear. In addition, most of the cases are not completely identical with the target cells. In previous work, we suggested that cell status is maintained by a homeostatic network of limited number of TFs and no single transcription factor is both necessary and sufficient to drive the differentiation process. Here, identifying the key TFs of human monocyte by combining comparative gene expression analysis and literature based text-mining, we mimicked the monocytic regulatory network in human dermal fibroblasts to induce direct cell conversion of the fibroblasts to monocytes. We suggested that although it is a primary master TF, single TF is not sufficient to induce the direct cell conversion and orchestrated TF regulation is necessary to complete the cell conversion. Total RNA obtained from human dermal fibroblasts(FIB), human CD14+ monocytes(MON), mock lentivirus vector transduced fibroblasts (FIB-mock), SPI1 transduced fibroblasts (FIB-SPI1), and SPI1, CEBPA, MNDA, IRF8 transduced fibroblasts(FIB-4Fs). The fold change was computed compared with fibroblasts or FIB-mock.
Project description:We used microarrays to detail the transcriptome-wide gene expression changes underlying chemical conversion of human fibroblasts into induced Schwann Cells over a time period of 39 days. We compared then the expression profiles of these induced Schwann Cells to primary Schwann cells. The gene expression results analyzed in this study are further described in Thoma et al. (2014) Chemical conversion of human fibroblasts into functional Schwann cells. Under submission