scholarly journals Using induced pluripotent stem cells to understand retinal ciliopathy disease mechanisms and develop therapies

2016 ◽  
Vol 44 (5) ◽  
pp. 1245-1251 ◽  
Author(s):  
David A. Parfitt ◽  
Amelia Lane ◽  
Conor Ramsden ◽  
Katarina Jovanovic ◽  
Peter J. Coffey ◽  
...  

The photoreceptor cells in the retina have a highly specialised sensory cilium, the outer segment (OS), which is important for detecting light. Mutations in cilia-related genes often result in retinal degeneration. The ability to reprogramme human cells into induced pluripotent stem cells and then differentiate them into a wide range of different cell types has revolutionised our ability to study human disease. To date, however, the challenge of producing fully differentiated photoreceptors in vitro has limited the application of this technology in studying retinal degeneration. In this review, we will discuss recent advances in stem cell technology and photoreceptor differentiation. In particular, the development of photoreceptors with rudimentary OS that can be used to understand disease mechanisms and as an important model to test potential new therapies for inherited retinal ciliopathies.

2021 ◽  
Vol 22 (9) ◽  
pp. 4334
Author(s):  
Katrina Albert ◽  
Jonna Niskanen ◽  
Sara Kälvälä ◽  
Šárka Lehtonen

Induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) are a self-renewable pool of cells derived from an organism’s somatic cells. These can then be programmed to other cell types, including neurons. Use of iPSCs in research has been two-fold as they have been used for human disease modelling as well as for the possibility to generate new therapies. Particularly in complex human diseases, such as neurodegenerative diseases, iPSCs can give advantages over traditional animal models in that they more accurately represent the human genome. Additionally, patient-derived cells can be modified using gene editing technology and further transplanted to the brain. Glial cells have recently become important avenues of research in the field of neurodegenerative diseases, for example, in Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease. This review focuses on using glial cells (astrocytes, microglia, and oligodendrocytes) derived from human iPSCs in order to give a better understanding of how these cells contribute to neurodegenerative disease pathology. Using glia iPSCs in in vitro cell culture, cerebral organoids, and intracranial transplantation may give us future insight into both more accurate models and disease-modifying therapies.


Author(s):  
Hannah Q Estrada ◽  
Shachi Patel ◽  
Shervin Rabizadeh ◽  
David Casero ◽  
Stephan R Targan ◽  
...  

Abstract Background Intestinal fibrosis is a serious complication of Crohn’s disease. Numerous cell types including intestinal epithelial and mesenchymal cells are implicated in this process, yet studies are hampered by the lack of personalized in vitro models. Human intestinal organoids (HIOs) derived from induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) contain these cell types, and our goal was to determine the feasibility of utilizing these to develop a personalized intestinal fibrosis model. Methods iPSCs from 2 control individuals and 2 very early onset inflammatory bowel disease patients with stricturing complications were obtained and directed to form HIOs. Purified populations of epithelial and mesenchymal cells were derived from HIOs, and both types were treated with the profibrogenic cytokine transforming growth factor β (TGFβ). Quantitative polymerase chain reaction and RNA sequencing analysis were used to assay their responses. Results In iPSC-derived mesenchymal cells, there was a significant increase in the expression of profibrotic genes (Col1a1, Col5a1, and TIMP1) in response to TGFβ. RNA sequencing analysis identified further profibrotic genes and demonstrated differential responses to this cytokine in each of the 4 lines. Increases in profibrotic gene expression (Col1a1, FN, TIMP1) along with genes associated with epithelial-mesenchymal transition (vimentin and N-cadherin) were observed in TGFβ -treated epithelial cells. Conclusions We demonstrate the feasibility of utilizing iPSC-HIO technology to model intestinal fibrotic responses in vitro. This now permits the generation of near unlimited quantities of patient-specific cells that could be used to reveal cell- and environmental-specific mechanisms underpinning intestinal fibrosis.


Author(s):  
Moning Liu ◽  
Lixia Zhao ◽  
Zixin Wang ◽  
Hong Su ◽  
Tong Wang ◽  
...  

Pluripotent stem cells (PSCs) have the potential to differentiate to all cell types of an adult individual and are useful for studying mammalian development. Establishing induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) capable of expressing pluripotent genes and differentiating to three germ layers will not only help to explain the mechanisms underlying somatic reprogramming but also lay the foundation for the establishment of sheep embryonic stem cells (ESCs) in vitro. In this study, sheep somatic cells were reprogrammed in vitro into sheep iPSCs with stable morphology, pluripotent marker expression, and differentiation ability, delivered by piggyBac transposon system with eight doxycycline (DOX)-inducible exogenous reprogramming factors: bovine OCT4, SOX2, KLF4, cMYC, porcine NANOG, human LIN28, SV40 large T antigen, and human TERT. Sheep iPSCs exhibited a chimeric contribution to the early blastocysts of sheep and mice and E6.5 mouse embryos in vitro. A transcriptome analysis revealed the pluripotent characteristics of somatic reprogramming and insights into sheep iPSCs. This study provides an ideal experimental material for further study of the construction of totipotent ESCs in sheep.


2011 ◽  
Vol 39 (6) ◽  
pp. 1775-1779 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xavier Nissan ◽  
Sophie Blondel ◽  
Marc Peschanski

Progeria, also known as HGPS (Hutchinson–Gilford progeria syndrome), is a rare fatal genetic disease characterized by an appearance of accelerated aging in children. This syndrome is typically caused by mutations in codon 608 (C1804T) of the gene encoding lamins A and C, LMNA, leading to the production of a truncated form of the protein called progerin. Owing to their unique potential to self-renew and to differentiate into any cell types of the organism, pluripotent stem cells offer a unique tool to study molecular and cellular mechanisms related to this global and systemic disease. Recent studies have exploited this potential by generating human induced pluripotent stem cells from HGPS patients' fibroblasts displaying several phenotypic defects characteristic of HGPS such as nuclear abnormalities, progerin expression, altered DNA-repair mechanisms and premature senescence. Altogether, these findings provide new insights on the use of pluripotent stem cells for pathological modelling and may open original therapeutic perspectives for diseases that lack pre-clinical in vitro human models, such as HGPS.


2020 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 507
Author(s):  
Alessandra Maria Lodrini ◽  
Lucio Barile ◽  
Marcella Rocchetti ◽  
Claudia Altomare

Reprogramming of adult somatic cells into induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) has revolutionized the complex scientific field of disease modelling and personalized therapy. Cardiac differentiation of human iPSCs into cardiomyocytes (hiPSC-CMs) has been used in a wide range of healthy and disease models by deriving CMs from different somatic cells. Unfortunately, hiPSC-CMs have to be improved because existing protocols are not completely able to obtain mature CMs recapitulating physiological properties of human adult cardiac cells. Therefore, improvements and advances able to standardize differentiation conditions are needed. Lately, evidences of an epigenetic memory retained by the somatic cells used for deriving hiPSC-CMs has led to evaluation of different somatic sources in order to obtain more mature hiPSC-derived CMs.


2020 ◽  
Vol 26 (3) ◽  
pp. 153-161
Author(s):  
Nemanja Rančić ◽  
Sanja Raščanin ◽  
Milijana Miljković ◽  
Mirjana Jovanović

Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells (iPSCs) are a type of pluripotent stem cells generated by reprogramming an adult somatic cell genome to the stage of a pluripotent stem cell in vitro by inducing a forced expression of specific transcription factors that are important for the maintenance of pluripotency. The iPSCs seem to be very similar to Embryonic Stem Cells (ESCs) in terms of morphology, cell surface markers and gene expression levels, but recent studies have demonstrated some differences between the two cell types. However, iPSCs might have potential application in regenerative medicine, transplantation, drug testing, disease modelling, and avoidance of tissue rejection and with less ethical concern than ESCs. This paper aims to present the most important characteristics of iPSCs which have therapeutic significance.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Johanna Geuder ◽  
Lucas E. Wange ◽  
Aleksandar Janjic ◽  
Jessica Radmer ◽  
Philipp Janssen ◽  
...  

AbstractComparing the molecular and cellular properties among primates is crucial to better understand human evolution and biology. However, it is difficult or ethically impossible to collect matched tissues from many primates, especially during development. An alternative is to model different cell types and their development using induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs). These can be generated from many tissue sources, but non-invasive sampling would decisively broaden the spectrum of non-human primates that can be investigated. Here, we report the generation of primate iPSCs from urine samples. We first validate and optimize the procedure using human urine samples and show that suspension- Sendai Virus transduction of reprogramming factors into urinary cells efficiently generates integration-free iPSCs, which maintain their pluripotency under feeder-free culture conditions. We demonstrate that this method is also applicable to gorilla and orangutan urinary cells isolated from a non-sterile zoo floor. We characterize the urinary cells, iPSCs and derived neural progenitor cells using karyotyping, immunohistochemistry, differentiation assays and RNA-sequencing. We show that the urine-derived human iPSCs are indistinguishable from well characterized PBMC-derived human iPSCs and that the gorilla and orangutan iPSCs are well comparable to the human iPSCs. In summary, this study introduces a novel and efficient approach to non-invasively generate iPSCs from primate urine. This will extend the zoo of species available for a comparative approach to molecular and cellular phenotypes.


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