scholarly journals Meta-analysis of human and mouse ALS astrocytes reveals multi-omic signatures of inflammatory reactive states

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Oliver J. Ziff ◽  
Benjamin E. Clarke ◽  
Doaa M. Taha ◽  
Hamish Crerar ◽  
Nicholas M. Luscombe ◽  
...  

Astrocytes contribute to motor neuron death in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), but whether they adopt deleterious features consistent with inflammatory reactive states remains incompletely resolved. To identify inflammatory reactive features in ALS human induced pluripotent stem cell (hiPSC)–derived astrocytes, we examined transcriptomics, proteomics, and glutamate uptake in VCP-mutant astrocytes. We complemented this by examining other ALS mutations and models using a systematic meta-analysis of all publicly-available ALS astrocyte sequencing data, which included hiPSC-derived astrocytes carrying SOD1, C9orf72, and FUS gene mutations as well as mouse ALS astrocyte models with SOD1G93A mutation, Tardbp deletion, and Tmem259 (also known as membralin) deletion. ALS astrocytes were characterized by up-regulation of genes involved in the extracellular matrix, endoplasmic reticulum stress, and the immune response and down-regulation of synaptic integrity, glutamate uptake, and other neuronal support processes. We identify activation of the TGFB, Wnt, and hypoxia signaling pathways in both hiPSC and mouse ALS astrocytes. ALS changes positively correlate with TNF, IL1A, and complement pathway component C1q-treated inflammatory reactive astrocytes, with significant overlap of differentially expressed genes. By contrasting ALS changes with models of protective reactive astrocytes, including middle cerebral artery occlusion and spinal cord injury, we uncover a cluster of genes changing in opposing directions, which may represent down-regulated homeostatic genes and up-regulated deleterious genes in ALS astrocytes. These observations indicate that ALS astrocytes augment inflammatory processes while concomitantly suppressing neuronal supporting mechanisms, thus resembling inflammatory reactive states and offering potential therapeutic targets.

2020 ◽  
Vol 21 (19) ◽  
pp. 6997 ◽  
Author(s):  
Davide Rovina ◽  
Elisa Castiglioni ◽  
Francesco Niro ◽  
Sara Mallia ◽  
Giulio Pompilio ◽  
...  

The ultimate goal of precision disease modeling is to artificially recreate the disease of affected people in a highly controllable and adaptable external environment. This field has rapidly advanced which is evident from the application of patient-specific pluripotent stem-cell-derived precision therapies in numerous clinical trials aimed at a diverse set of diseases such as macular degeneration, heart disease, spinal cord injury, graft-versus-host disease, and muscular dystrophy. Despite the existence of semi-adequate treatments for tempering skeletal muscle degeneration in dystrophic patients, nonischemic cardiomyopathy remains one of the primary causes of death. Therefore, cardiovascular cells derived from muscular dystrophy patients’ induced pluripotent stem cells are well suited to mimic dystrophin-associated cardiomyopathy and hold great promise for the development of future fully effective therapies. The purpose of this article is to convey the realities of employing precision disease models of dystrophin-associated cardiomyopathy. This is achieved by discussing, as suggested in the title echoing William Shakespeare’s words, the settlements (or “leagues”) made by researchers to manage the constraints (“betwixt mine eye and heart”) distancing them from achieving a perfect precision disease model.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sara Ballouz ◽  
Melissa M Mangala ◽  
Matthew D Perry ◽  
Stewart Heitmann ◽  
Jesse A Gillis ◽  
...  

AbstractCardiac electrical activity is controlled by the carefully orchestrated activity of more than a dozen different ion conductances. Yet, there is considerable variability in cardiac ion channel expression levels both within and between subjects. In this study we tested the hypothesis that variations in ion channel expression between individuals are not random but rather there are modules of co-expressed genes and that these modules make electrical signaling in the heart more robust.Meta-analysis of 3653 public RNA-Seq datasets identified a strong correlation between expression of CACNA1C (L-type calcium current, ICaL) and KCNH2 (rapid delayed rectifier K+ current, IKr), which was verified in mRNA extracted from human induced pluripotent stem cell-derived cardiomyocytes (hiPSC-CM). In silico modeling, validated with functional measurements in hiPSC-CM, indicates that the co-expression of CACNA1C and KCNH2 limits the variability in action potential duration and reduces susceptibility to early afterdepolarizations, a surrogate marker for pro-arrhythmia.Impact StatementCoexpressed levels of potassium and calcium ion channel genes in the heart encode more robust cardiac electrophysiology and provide insights into genetic basis of arrhythmic risk


2018 ◽  
Vol 2018 ◽  
pp. 1-7 ◽  
Author(s):  
Junhao Deng ◽  
Yiling Zhang ◽  
Yong Xie ◽  
Licheng Zhang ◽  
Peifu Tang

Spinal cord injury (SCI) is an intractable and worldwide difficult medical challenge with limited treatments. Neural stem/progenitor cell (NS/PC) transplantation derived from fetal tissues or embryonic stem cells (ESCs) has demonstrated therapeutic effects via replacement of lost neurons and severed axons and creation of permissive microenvironment to promote repair of spinal cord and axon regeneration but causes ethnical concerns and immunological rejections as well. Thus, the implementation of induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs), which can be generated from adult somatic cells and differentiated into NS/PCs, provides an effective alternation in the treatment of SCI. However, as researches further deepen, there is accumulating evidence that the use of iPSC-derived NS/PCs shows mounting concerns of safety, especially the tumorigenicity. This review discusses the tumorigenicity of iPSC-derived NS/PCs focusing on the two different routes of tumorigenicity (teratomas and true tumors) and underlying mechanisms behind them, as well as possible solutions to circumvent them.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Foad J Rouhani ◽  
Xueqing Zou ◽  
Petr Danecek ◽  
Tauanne Dias Amarante ◽  
Gene Koh ◽  
...  

SummaryHuman Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells (hiPSC) are an established patient-specific model system where opportunities are emerging for cell-based therapies. We contrast hiPSCs derived from different tissues, skin and blood, in the same individual. We show extensive single-nucleotide mutagenesis in all hiPSC lines, although fibroblast-derived hiPSCs (F-hiPSCs) are particularly heavily mutagenized by ultraviolet(UV)-related damage. We utilize genome sequencing data on 454 F-hiPSCs and 44 blood-derived hiPSCs (B-hiPSCs) to gain further insights. Across 324 whole genome sequenced(WGS) F-hiPSCs derived by the Human Induced Pluripotent Stem Cell Initiative (HipSci), UV-related damage is present in ~72% of cell lines, sometimes causing substantial mutagenesis (range 0.25-15 per Mb). Furthermore, we find remarkable genomic heterogeneity between independent F-hiPSC clones derived from the same reprogramming process in the same donor, due to oligoclonal populations within fibroblasts. Combining WGS and exome-sequencing data of 452 HipSci F-hiPSCs, we identify 272 predicted pathogenic mutations in cancer-related genes, of which 21 genes were hit recurrently three or more times, involving 77 (17%) lines. Notably, 151 of 272 mutations were present in starting fibroblast populations suggesting that more than half of putative driver events in F-hiPSCs were acquired in vivo. In contrast, B-hiPSCs reprogrammed from erythroblasts show lower levels of genome-wide mutations (range 0.28-1.4 per Mb), no UV damage, but a strikingly high prevalence of acquired BCOR mutations of ~57%, indicative of strong selection pressure. All hiPSCs had otherwise stable, diploid genomes on karyotypic pre-screening, highlighting how copy-number-based approaches do not have the required resolution to detect widespread nucleotide mutagenesis. This work strongly suggests that models for cell-based therapies require detailed nucleotide-resolution characterization prior to clinical application.


2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Irene Gallego Romero ◽  
Bryan J Pavlovic ◽  
Irene Hernando-Herraez ◽  
Nicholas E Banovich ◽  
Courtney L Kagan ◽  
...  

Comparative genomics studies in primates are extremely restricted because we only have access to a few types of cell lines from non-human apes and to a limited collection of frozen tissues. In order to gain better insight into regulatory processes that underlie variation in complex phenotypes, we must have access to faithful model systems for a wide range of tissues and cell types. To facilitate this, we have generated a panel of 7 fully characterized chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes) induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) lines derived from fibroblasts of healthy donors. All lines appear to be free of integration from exogenous reprogramming vectors, can be maintained using standard iPSC culture techniques, and have proliferative and differentiation potential similar to human and mouse lines. To begin demonstrating the utility of comparative iPSC panels, we collected RNA sequencing data and methylation profiles from the chimpanzee iPSCs and their corresponding fibroblast precursors, as well as from 7 human iPSCs and their precursors, which were of multiple cell type and population origins. Overall, we observed much less regulatory variation within species in the iPSCs than in the somatic precursors, indicating that the reprogramming process has erased many of the differences observed between somatic cells of different origins. We identified 4,918 differentially expressed genes and 3,598 differentially methylated regions between iPSCs of the two species, many of which are novel inter-species differences that were not observed between the somatic cells of the two species. Our panel will help realise the potential of iPSCs in primate studies, and in combination with genomic technologies, transform studies of comparative evolution.


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