Project description:Here, we demonstrate a generalized method for organ bud formation from diverse tissues by combining pluripotent stem cell-derived tissue-specific progenitors or relevant tissue samples with endothelial cells and mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs). The MSCs initiated condensation within these heterotypic cell mixtures, which was dependent upon substrate matrix stiffness. Defining optimal mechanical properties promoted formation of 3D, transplantable organ buds from tissues including kidney, pancreas, intestine, heart, lung, and brain. Transplanted pancreatic and renal buds were rapidly vascularized and self-organized into functional, tissue-specific structures. These findings provide a general platform for harnessing mechanical properties to generate vascularized, complex organ buds with broad applications for regenerative medicine. Gene expression profiles of development-related gene expression in kidney bud transplants and murine kidneys.
Project description:Here, we demonstrate a generalized method for organ bud formation from diverse tissues by combining pluripotent stem cell-derived tissue-specific progenitors or relevant tissue samples with endothelial cells and mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs). The MSCs initiated condensation within these heterotypic cell mixtures, which was dependent upon substrate matrix stiffness. Defining optimal mechanical properties promoted formation of 3D, transplantable organ buds from tissues including kidney, pancreas, intestine, heart, lung, and brain. Transplanted pancreatic and renal buds were rapidly vascularized and self-organized into functional, tissue-specific structures. These findings provide a general platform for harnessing mechanical properties to generate vascularized, complex organ buds with broad applications for regenerative medicine.
Project description:Organoid technology provides a revolutionary paradigm towards therapy, yet to be applied in humans mainly because of the reproducibility and scalability challenges. Here, we overcome these limitations by evolving scalable organ bud production platform entirely from human induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSC). By conducting massive ‘reverse’ screen experiments, we identified effective triple progenitor populations for generating liver buds in a highly reproducible manner: hepatic endoderm, endothelial and septum mesenchyme progenitors. Furthermore, we achieved human scalability by developing an omni-well-array culture platform for mass-producing homogenous and miniaturized liver buds on a clinically relevant large scale (>108-cell scale). Vascularized and functional liver tissues generated entirely from iPSC significantly improved subsequent hepatic functionalization potentiated by stage-matched developmental progenitor interactions, enabling functional rescue against acute liver failure via transplantation. Overall, our study provides a stringent manufacture platform for multi-cellular organoid supply, thus facilitating clinical and pharmaceutical applications especially for the treatment of liver diseases through multi-industrial collaborations.
Project description:Organoid technology provides a revolutionary paradigm towards therapy, yet to be applied in humans mainly because of the reproducibility and scalability challenges. Here, we overcome these limitations by evolving scalable organ bud production platform entirely from human induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSC). By conducting massive ‘reverse’ screen experiments, we identified effective triple progenitor populations for generating liver buds in a highly reproducible manner: hepatic endoderm, endothelial and septum mesenchyme progenitors. Furthermore, we achieved human scalability by developing an omni-well-array culture platform for mass-producing homogenous and miniaturized liver buds on a clinically relevant large scale (>108-cell scale). Vascularized and functional liver tissues generated entirely from iPSC significantly improved subsequent hepatic functionalization potentiated by stage-matched developmental progenitor interactions, enabling functional rescue against acute liver failure via transplantation. Overall, our study provides a stringent manufacture platform for multi-cellular organoid supply, thus facilitating clinical and pharmaceutical applications especially for the treatment of liver diseases through multi-industrial collaborations.
Project description:Adipose tissues, particularly beige and brown adipose tissue, play crucial roles in energy metabolism. Brown adipose tissues’ thermogenic capacity and the appearance of beige cells within white adipose tissue have spurred interest in their metabolic impact and therapeutic potential. Brown and beige fat cells, activated by factors like cold exposure, share mechanisms that drive non-shivering thermogenesis. Understanding their behavior requires sophisticated, yet universal in vitro models that replicate the complex microenvironment and vasculature of adipose tissues. Here we present mouse vascularized adipose spheroids of the stromal vascular microenvironment from inguinal white adipose tissue. We show that scaffold embedding improves vascular sprouting, enhances spheroid growth, and upregulates adipogenic markers. Transcriptional profiling via RNA sequencing revealed distinct metabolic pathways upregulated in our vascularized adipose spheroids, with increased expression of genes involved in glucose metabolism, lipid metabolism, and thermogenesis. Functional assessment demonstrated increased oxygen consumption in vascularized adipose spheroids compared to 2D cultures, which was further enhanced by β-adrenergic receptor stimulation via isoproterenol correlating with elevated β-adrenergic receptor expression. Moreover, stimulation with the naturally occurring adipokine, FGF21, induced Ucp1 mRNA expression in the vascularized adipose spheroids. In conclusion, our vascularized inguinal white adipose tissue spheroids provide a physiologically relevant platform to study how the stromal vascular microenvironment shapes adipocyte responses and influence activated thermogenesis in beige adipocytes.
Project description:Critical shortage of donor organs for treating end-stage organ failure highlights the urgent need for generating organs from induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs). Despite many reports describing functional cell differentiation, no studies have succeeded in generating a three-dimensional vascularised organ such as liver. Here, we show the generation of vascularised and functional human liver from hiPSCs by transplantation of liver buds created in vitro (hiPSC-LBs). Specified hepatic cells self-organised into three-dimensional hiPSC-LBs by recapitulating organogenetic interactions between endothelial and mesenchymal cells. Immunostaining and gene expression analyses revealed resemblance between in vitro grown hiPSC-LBs and in vivo liver buds. Human vasculatures in hiPSC-LB transplants became functional by connecting to the host vessels within 48 hours. The formation of functional vasculatures stimulated the maturation of hiPSC-LBs into tissue resembling the adult liver. Highly metabolic hiPSC-derived tissue performed liver-specific functions such as protein production and human-specific drug metabolism without recipient liver replacement. Comparison of liver developmental gene signatures among hiPSC-LB, hFLC-LB, human adult (30 years old) liver tissues (hALT) and mouse liver tissue (mLT) of various developmental stages (E9.5~P8weeks).
Project description:Endochondral ossification (EO) is the natural route for the regeneration of large and mechanically challenged bone defects. Regeneration occurs via a fibrocartilagenous phase which turns into bone upon vascularization and the formation of a transient collagen type X extra cellular matrix. These two critical initiator of EO are mediated by Hedgehog proteins. We investigated a tissue engineering approach using Sonic Hedgehog (Shh) as a pleiotropic factor regulating the in vitro formation of a vascularized bone tissue precursor for in vivo endochondral bone formation. The tissue engineered graft was formed using human mesenchymal stem cells and prevascularized using human umbilical vein endothelial cells. We show that Shh induced, in vitro, the maturation of the engineered vascular network along with the expression of collagen type X which resulted, in vivo, in an improved vascularization and the rapid formation of large amounts of osteoids through EO. Osteoids further matured into, currently unmatched, clinically relevant amount of lamellar bone including osteoclasts, bone lining cells and bone marrow-like cavities. This result suggests that Hh is a master regulator of EO allowing for the formation of complex tissues with considerable therapeutic potential for bone regeneration. The effect of Cyclopamine on expression of Hedgehog, angiogenesis and axon guidance marker genes was analyzed by seeding a coculture of 92% hMSCs and 8% huvEC supplemented or not in cyclopamine, for 12 days
Project description:Critical shortage of donor organs for treating end-stage organ failure highlights the urgent need for generating organs from induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs). Despite many reports describing functional cell differentiation, no studies have succeeded in generating a three-dimensional vascularised organ such as liver. Here, we show the generation of vascularised and functional human liver from hiPSCs by transplantation of liver buds created in vitro (hiPSC-LBs). Specified hepatic cells self-organised into three-dimensional hiPSC-LBs by recapitulating organogenetic interactions between endothelial and mesenchymal cells. Immunostaining and gene expression analyses revealed resemblance between in vitro grown hiPSC-LBs and in vivo liver buds. Human vasculatures in hiPSC-LB transplants became functional by connecting to the host vessels within 48 hours. The formation of functional vasculatures stimulated the maturation of hiPSC-LBs into tissue resembling the adult liver. Highly metabolic hiPSC-derived tissue performed liver-specific functions such as protein production and human-specific drug metabolism without recipient liver replacement.
Project description:The healing of bone injury begins with the release of microenvironment signals and regulation ofcell identity transformation. Schwann cells (SCs) of peripheral nerve play a critical role in the earlystage of vascular remodeling and bone regeneration. However, how SCs respond to injury andinitiate the vascularized osteogenesis remains incompletely understood. Here, by employing single-cell transcriptional profiling combined with lineage-specific tracing models, we uncovered that asubset of Gli1+ mesenchymal stromal cells (MSCs) undergoing injury-induced glia-to-MSCtransition (GMT) contributed to osteogenesis and revascularization in the initial stage of bone injury.Importantly, our data demonstrated that the Sonic hedgehog (Shh) signaling was responsible for theGMT initiation, which was strongly activated by c-Jun/SIRT6/BAF170 complex-driven Shhenhancers. Collectively, these findings depict an injury-specific niche signal-mediated SCstransition towards Gli1+ MSCs and may be instructive for approaches to promote bone regenerationduring aging or other bone diseases.
Project description:Extensive studies of the model plant Arabidopsis has enabled a deep understanding of organs and tissues throughout plant development. Yet, a fundamental understanding of cell types and states across organs and development is still lacking. Here, we present a single-nucleus transcriptome atlas of Arabidopsis seed-to-seed development encompassing diverse tissues across ten developmental time points. Analysis of over 400,000 nuclei revealed 183 major and 653 subclusters that demarcate cell type and state. Cross-organ analyses revealed that the transcriptional identity of many cell types is conserved across development but influenced by the organ of origin and developmental timing. In addition, groups of transcription factors were enriched and uniquely expressed in individual organs and time points, suggesting developmental gatekeeping of transcription factor activation. Finally, we employed spatial transcriptomics to validate our findings in the highly complex silique organ.