Project description:Human induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) can provide a promising source of midbrain dopaminergic (DA) neurons for cell replacement therapy for Parkinson’s disease. However, iPSC-derived donor cells may inevitably contain tumorigenic or inappropriate cells. Purification of neural progenitor cells or DA neurons as suitable donor cells has been attempted, but the isolation of DA progenitor cells derived from human pluripotent stem cells has so far been unsuccessful. Here we show human iPSC-derived DA progenitor cells can be efficiently isolated by cell sorting using a floor plate marker, Corin. we were able to develop a method for 1) scalable DA neuron induction on human laminin fragment and 2) sorting DA progenitor cells using an anti-Corin antibody. Furthermore, we determined the optimal timing for the cell sorting and transplantation. The grafted cells survived well and functioned as midbrain DA neurons in the 6-OHDA-lesioned rats, and showed minimal risk of tumor formation. The sorting of Corin-positive cells is favorable in terms of both safety and efficiency, and our protocol will contribute to the clinical application of human iPSCs for Parkinson’s disease. Differentiated human iPSC-derived neural progenitors just after sorting (day12 unsorted, day12 Corin+) and dopaminergic progenitors after an aggregation culture (day28 and day42, unsorted and day12-sorted, respectively), and human fetal ventral mesencephalon and dorsal mesencephalon (gestational age of 7.5 weeks) were subjected to RNA extraction and hybrdization on Affymetrix microarrays. Each sample except for human mesencephalon, undifferentiated iPSC, and day12-unsorted, day42-sample has 3 or 4 repeats.
Project description:Despite the progress in safety and efficacy of cell therapy with pluripotent stem cells (PSCs), the presence of residual undifferentiated stem cells or proliferating neural progenitor cells (NPCs) with rostral identity has remained a major challenge. Here we reported the generation of an LMX1A knock-in GFP reporter human embryonic stem cell (hESC) line that marks the early dopaminergic progenitors during neural differentiation. Purified GFP positive cells in vitro exhibited expression of mRNA and proteins that characterized and matched the midbrain dopaminergic identity. Further proteomic analysis of enriched LMX1A+ cells identified several membrane associated proteins including CNTN2, enabling prospective isolation of LMX1A+ progenitor cells. Transplantation of hPSC-derived purified CNTN2+ progenitors enhanced dopamine release from transplanted cells in the host brain and alleviated Parkinson’s disease symptoms in animal models. Our study establishes an efficient approach for purification of large numbers of hPSC-derived dopaminergic progenitors for therapeutic applications.
Project description:Advances in stem cell technologies open up new avenues for modelling development and diseases. The success of these pursuits however rely on the use of cells most relevant to those targeted by the disease of interest, for example, midbrain dopaminergic neurons for Parkinson’s disease. In the present study, we report the generation of a human induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) line capable of purifying and tracing nascent midbrain dopaminergic progenitors and their differentiated progeny via the expression of a Blue Fluorescent Protein (BFP). This was achieved by CRISPR/Cas9 assisted knock-in of BFP and Cre into the safe harbour locus AAVS1 and an early midbrain dopaminergic lineage marker gene LMX1A, respectively. Immunocytochemical analysis and single cell RNA sequencing of iPSC-derived neural cultures confirms developmental recapitulation of the human fetal midbrain and high quality midbrain cells. By modelling Parkinson’s disease-related drug toxicity using 1-Methyl-4-phenylpyridinium (MPP+), we showed preferential reduction of BFP+ cells, a finding demonstrated independently by cell death assays and single cell transcriptomic analysis of MPP+ treated neural cultures. Together, these results highlight the importance of disease relevant cell type in stem cell modelling.
Project description:Advances in stem cell technologies open up new avenues for modelling development and diseases. The success of these pursuits however rely on the use of cells most relevant to those targeted by the disease of interest, for example, midbrain dopaminergic neurons for Parkinson’s disease. In the present study, we report the generation of a human induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) line capable of purifying and tracing nascent midbrain dopaminergic progenitors and their differentiated progeny via the expression of a Blue Fluorescent Protein (BFP). This was achieved by CRISPR/Cas9 assisted knock-in of BFP and Cre into the safe harbour locus AAVS1 and an early midbrain dopaminergic lineage marker gene LMX1A, respectively. Immunocytochemical analysis and single cell RNA sequencing of iPSC-derived neural cultures confirms developmental recapitulation of the human fetal midbrain and high quality midbrain cells. By modelling Parkinson’s disease-related drug toxicity using 1-Methyl-4-phenylpyridinium (MPP+), we showed preferential reduction of BFP+ cells, a finding demonstrated independently by cell death assays and single cell transcriptomic analysis of MPP+ treated neural cultures. Together, these results highlight the importance of disease relevant cell type in stem cell modelling.
Project description:Embryonic stem (ES) cells were differentiated in culture to midbrain dopaminergic (mDA) progenitors and subjected to ChIP-seq analysis to resolve genome-wide binding sites of forkhead box protein A2 (Foxa2). Foxa2 was found to directly regulate multiple lineage pathways to specify midbrain dopaminergic and floor plate progenitor identity.
Project description:Induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSC) derived from sporadic Parkinson's disease patients and healthy control subjects were used for disease modeling. iPSC were differentiated towards midbrain dopaminergic neurons. For metabolic analysis, midbrain neuronal precursor cells were cultivated in growth medium supplemented with either 1.25 mM [U-13C]-glutamine or 21.25 mM [U-13C]-glucose. Metabolites were extracted and analyzed using GC-MS. The MetaboliteDetector software was used to analyze chromatograms, calculate mass isotopomer distributions (MIDs) and perform relative comparison of metabolite levels.
Project description:To improve the standardization of cell therapies for Parkinson’s disease, methods for the selection and isolation of midbrain dopaminergic progenitors for transplantation are required. To facilitate this we established an expression profile for genes selectively expressed on transplantable midbrain dopaminergic progenitors using microarray analysis. Expression of GFP in the ventral mesencephalon of embryonic E12.5 Ngn2-GFP mice identifies a distinct sub-population of cells containing virtually all of the midbrain dopaminergic progenitors. Gene expression profiles from 3 biological replicates of FACS isolated GFP-positive cells from mouse Ngn2-GFP ventral mesencephalon were generated using microarrays. To reduce the likelihood of identifying transcripts from non-dopaminergic progenitors, 3 biological replicates of FACS isolated GFP-negative cells from mouse Lmx1a-GFP ventral mesencephalon (definitively non-dopaminergic) were used as a reference population.
Project description:Human induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) can provide a promising source of midbrain dopaminergic (DA) neurons for cell replacement therapy for Parkinson’s disease. However, iPSC-derived donor cells may inevitably contain tumorigenic or inappropriate cells. Purification of neural progenitor cells or DA neurons as suitable donor cells has been attempted, but the isolation of DA progenitor cells derived from human pluripotent stem cells has so far been unsuccessful. Here we show human iPSC-derived DA progenitor cells can be efficiently isolated by cell sorting using a floor plate marker, Corin. we were able to develop a method for 1) scalable DA neuron induction on human laminin fragment and 2) sorting DA progenitor cells using an anti-Corin antibody. Furthermore, we determined the optimal timing for the cell sorting and transplantation. The grafted cells survived well and functioned as midbrain DA neurons in the 6-OHDA-lesioned rats, and showed minimal risk of tumor formation. The sorting of Corin-positive cells is favorable in terms of both safety and efficiency, and our protocol will contribute to the clinical application of human iPSCs for Parkinson’s disease.
Project description:To improve the standardization of cell therapies for Parkinson’s disease, methods for the selection and isolation of midbrain dopaminergic progenitors for transplantation are required. To facilitate this we established an expression profile for genes selectively expressed on transplantable midbrain dopaminergic progenitors using microarray analysis.
Project description:Human induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) can provide a promising source of midbrain dopaminergic (mDA) neurons for cell replacement therapy for Parkinson's disease (PD). However, iPSC-derived donor cells inevitably contain tumorigenic or inappropriate cells. To eliminate these unwanted cells, cell sorting using antibodies for specific markers such as CORIN or ALCAM have been developed, but neither marker is specific for ventral midbrain. Here, we employed a double-selection strategy for cells expressing both CORIN and LMX1A::GFP and report a novel cell surface marker to enrich mDA progenitors, LRTM1. When transplanted into 6-OHDA-lesioned rats, human iPSC-derived LRTM1+ cells survived and differentiated into mDA neurons in vivo, resulting in significant improvement in motor behavior without tumor formation. In addition, LRTM1+ cells exhibited efficient survival of mDA neurons in the brain of an MPTP-treated monkey. Thus, LRTM1 can provide a powerful tool for efficient and safe cell therapy for PD patients.