scholarly journals An efficient method to generate kidney organoids at the air-liquid interface

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. e150
Author(s):  
Ashwani Kumar Gupta ◽  
David Z. Ivancic ◽  
Bilal A. Naved ◽  
Jason A. Wertheim ◽  
Leif Oxburgh

The prevalence of kidney dysfunction continues to increase worldwide, driving the need to develop transplantable renal tissues. The kidney develops from four major renal progenitor populations: nephron epithelial, ureteric epithelial, interstitial and endothelial progenitors. Methods have been developed to generate kidney organoids but few or dispersed tubular clusters within the organoids hamper its use in regenerative applications. Here, we describe a detailed protocol of asynchronous mixing of kidney progenitors using organotypic culture conditions to generate kidney organoids tightly packed with tubular clusters and major renal structures including endothelial network and functional proximal tubules. This protocol provides guidance in the culture of human embryonic stem cells from a National Institute of Health-approved line and their directed differentiation into kidney organoids. Our 18-day protocol provides a rapid method to generate kidney organoids that facilitate the study of different nephrological events including in vitro tissue development, disease modeling and chemical screening. However, further studies are required to optimize the protocol to generate additional renal-specific cell types, interconnected nephron segments and physiologically functional renal tissues.

2017 ◽  
Vol 2017 ◽  
pp. 1-18 ◽  
Author(s):  
Divya S. Varghese ◽  
Shama Parween ◽  
Mustafa T. Ardah ◽  
Bright Starling Emerald ◽  
Suraiya A. Ansari

Human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) are being used extensively in array of studies to understand different mechanisms such as early human embryogenesis, drug toxicity testing, disease modeling, and cell replacement therapy. The protocols for the directed differentiation of hESCs towards specific cell types often require long-term cell cultures. To avoid bacterial contamination, these protocols include addition of antibiotics such as pen-strep and gentamicin. Although aminoglycosides, streptomycin, and gentamicin have been shown to cause cytotoxicity in various animal models, the effect of these antibiotics on hESCs is not clear. In this study, we found that antibiotics, pen-strep, and gentamicin did not affect hESC cell viability or expression of pluripotency markers. However, during directed differentiation towards neural and hepatic fate, significant cell death was noted through the activation of caspase cascade. Also, the expression of neural progenitor markers Pax6, Emx2, Otx2, and Pou3f2 was significantly reduced suggesting that gentamicin may adversely affect early embryonic neurogenesis whereas no effect was seen on the expression of endoderm or hepatic markers during differentiation. Our results suggest that the use of antibiotics in cell culture media for the maintenance and differentiation of hESCs needs thorough investigation before use to avoid erroneous results.


2015 ◽  
Vol 10s1 ◽  
pp. BMI.S20054 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benjamin S. Freedman

Induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) are somatic cells that have been transcriptionally reprogrammed to an embryonic stem cell (ESC)-like state. iPSCs are a renewable source of diverse somatic cell types and tissues matching the original patient, including nephron-like kidney organoids. iPSCs have been derived representing several kidney disorders, such as ADPKD, ARPKD, Alport syndrome, and lupus nephritis, with the goals of generating replacement tissue and ‘disease in a dish’ laboratory models. Cellular defects in iPSCs and derived kidney organoids provide functional, personalized biomarkers, which can be correlated with genetic and clinical information. In proof of principle, disease-specific phenotypes have been described in iPSCs and ESCs with mutations linked to polycystic kidney disease or focal segmental glomerulosclerosis. In addition, these cells can be used to model nephrotoxic chemical injury. Recent advances in directed differentiation and CRISPR genome editing enable more specific iPSC models and present new possibilities for diagnostics, disease modeling, therapeutic screens, and tissue regeneration using human cells. This review outlines growth opportunities and design strategies for this rapidly expanding and evolving field.


2019 ◽  
Vol 2019 ◽  
pp. 1-11 ◽  
Author(s):  
Meike Hohwieler ◽  
Martin Müller ◽  
Pierre-Olivier Frappart ◽  
Sandra Heller

Embryonic stem cells (ESCs) and induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) are characterized by their unique capacity to stepwise differentiate towards any particular cell type in an adult organism. Pluripotent stem cells provide a beneficial platform to model hereditary diseases and even cancer development. While the incidence of pancreatic diseases such as diabetes and pancreatitis is increasing, the understanding of the underlying pathogenesis of particular diseases remains limited. Only a few recent publications have contributed to the characterization of human pancreatic development in the fetal stage. Hence, most knowledge of pancreatic specification is based on murine embryology. Optimizing and understanding current in vitro protocols for pancreatic differentiation of ESCs and iPSCs constitutes a prerequisite to generate functional pancreatic cells for better disease modeling and drug discovery. Moreover, human pancreatic organoids derived from pluripotent stem cells, organ-restricted stem cells, and tumor samples provide a powerful technology to model carcinogenesis and hereditary diseases independent of genetically engineered mouse models. Herein, we summarize recent advances in directed differentiation of pancreatic organoids comprising endocrine cell types. Beyond that, we illustrate up-and-coming applications for organoid-based platforms.


2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Toshikatsu Matsui ◽  
Tadahiro Shinozawa

Organoids are three-dimensional structures fabricated in vitro from pluripotent stem cells or adult tissue stem cells via a process of self-organization that results in the formation of organ-specific cell types. Human organoids are expected to mimic complex microenvironments and many of the in vivo physiological functions of relevant tissues, thus filling the translational gap between animals and humans and increasing our understanding of the mechanisms underlying disease and developmental processes. In the last decade, organoid research has attracted increasing attention in areas such as disease modeling, drug development, regenerative medicine, toxicology research, and personalized medicine. In particular, in the field of toxicology, where there are various traditional models, human organoids are expected to blaze a new path in future research by overcoming the current limitations, such as those related to differences in drug responses among species. Here, we discuss the potential usefulness, limitations, and future prospects of human liver, heart, kidney, gut, and brain organoids from the viewpoints of predictive toxicology research and drug development, providing cutting edge information on their fabrication methods and functional characteristics.


2017 ◽  
Vol 2017 ◽  
pp. 1-8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tomohiko Akiyama ◽  
Shunichi Wakabayashi ◽  
Atsumi Soma ◽  
Saeko Sato ◽  
Yuhki Nakatake ◽  
...  

Human pluripotent stem cells (hPSCs) have the capacity to differentiate into essentially all cell types in the body. Such differentiation can be directed to specific cell types by appropriate cell culture conditions or overexpressing lineage-defining transcription factors (TFs). Especially, for the activation of myogenic program, early studies have shown the effectiveness of enforced expression of TFs associated with myogenic differentiation, such as PAX7 and MYOD1. However, the efficiency of direct differentiation was rather low, most likely due to chromatin features unique to hPSCs, which hinder the access of TFs to genes involved in muscle differentiation. Indeed, recent studies have demonstrated that ectopic expression of epigenetic-modifying factors such as a histone demethylase and an ATP-dependent remodeling factor significantly enhances myogenic differentiation from hPSCs. In this article, we review the recent progress for in vitro generation of skeletal muscles from hPSCs through forced epigenetic and transcriptional manipulation.


2006 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 208-219 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alan Trounson

Human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) are being rapidly produced from chromosomally euploid, aneuploid, and mutant human embryos that are available from in vitro fertilization clinics treating patients for infertility or preimplantation genetic diagnosis. These hESC lines are an important resource for functional genomics, drug screening, and, perhaps eventually, cell and gene therapy. The methods for deriving hESCs are well established and repeatable and are relatively successful with a ratio of 1:10 to 1:2 new hESC lines produced from 4- to 8-d-old morula and blastocysts and from isolated inner cell mass cell clusters of human blastocysts. The hESCs can be formed and maintained on human somatic cells in humanized serum-free culture conditions and for several passages in cell-free culture systems. The hESCs can be transfected with DNA constructs. Their gene expression profiles are being described and immunological characteristics determined. They may be grown indefinitely in vitro while maintaining their original karyotype and epigenetic status, but this needs to be confirmed from time to time in long-term cultures. hESCs spontaneously differentiate in the absence of the appropriate cell feeder layer, when overgrown in culture and when isolated from the ESC colony. All three major embryonic lineages are produced in differentiating flat attachment cultures and unattached embryoid bodies. Cell progenitors of interest can be identified by markers, expression of reporter genes, and characteristic morphology, and the cells thereafter enriched for progenitor types and further culture to more mature cell types. Directed differentiation systems are well developed for ectodermal pathways that result in neural and glial cells and the mesendodermal pathway for cardiac muscle cells and many other cell types including hematopoietic progenitors and endothelial cells. Directed differentiation into endoderm has been more difficult to achieve, perhaps because of the lack of markers of early progenitors in this lineage. There are reports of enriched cultures of keratinocytes, pigmented retinal epithelium, neural crest cells and motor neurons, hepatic progenitors, and cells that have some markers of gut tissue and pancreatic islet-like cells. The prospects for use of hESC derivatives in regenerative medicine are significant, and there is much optimism for their potential contributions to human regenerative medicine.


1998 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 121 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. Trounson ◽  
M. Pera

The successful cloning of a mammal from an adult somatic cell nucleus opens new avenues for major advances in reproductive medicine, biotechnology and cellular-based transplantation therapies for degenerative diseases. At the same time, this breakthrough has generated much heated discussion concerning the ethics of cloning. Twinning is a form of cloning, and there are instances in clinical assisted reproduction in which the deliberate formation of twins by embryo dissection would seem ethically acceptable. Nuclear transfer technology might facilitate the derivation of human embryonic stem cells, capable of differentiation into a wide variety of somatic cell lineages. Directed differentiation of human embryonic stem cells into specific cell types in vitro could provide a universal source of cells for transplantation therapy. The potential benefits of therapeutics based on cloning technologies are considerable, and hasty legislation to ban all such procedures could block progress in critical arenas of biomedical research


Blood ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 125 (17) ◽  
pp. 2641-2648 ◽  
Author(s):  
Linda T. Vo ◽  
George Q. Daley

Abstract Generating human hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) from autologous tissues, when coupled with genome editing technologies, is a promising approach for cellular transplantation therapy and for in vitro disease modeling, drug discovery, and toxicology studies. Human pluripotent stem cells (hPSCs) represent a potentially inexhaustible supply of autologous tissue; however, to date, directed differentiation from hPSCs has yielded hematopoietic cells that lack robust and sustained multilineage potential. Cellular reprogramming technologies represent an alternative platform for the de novo generation of HSCs via direct conversion from heterologous cell types. In this review, we discuss the latest advancements in HSC generation by directed differentiation from hPSCs or direct conversion from somatic cells, and highlight their applications in research and prospects for therapy.


2018 ◽  
Vol 18 (4) ◽  
pp. 246-255 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lara Termini ◽  
Enrique Boccardo

In vitro culture of primary or established cell lines is one of the leading techniques in many areas of basic biological research. The use of pure or highly enriched cultures of specific cell types obtained from different tissues and genetics backgrounds has greatly contributed to our current understanding of normal and pathological cellular processes. Cells in culture are easily propagated generating an almost endless source of material for experimentation. Besides, they can be manipulated to achieve gene silencing, gene overexpression and genome editing turning possible the dissection of specific gene functions and signaling pathways. However, monolayer and suspension cultures of cells do not reproduce the cell type diversity, cell-cell contacts, cell-matrix interactions and differentiation pathways typical of the three-dimensional environment of tissues and organs from where they were originated. Therefore, different experimental animal models have been developed and applied to address these and other complex issues in vivo. However, these systems are costly and time consuming. Most importantly the use of animals in scientific research poses moral and ethical concerns facing a steadily increasing opposition from different sectors of the society. Therefore, there is an urgent need for the development of alternative in vitro experimental models that accurately reproduce the events observed in vivo to reduce the use of animals. Organotypic cultures combine the flexibility of traditional culture systems with the possibility of culturing different cell types in a 3D environment that reproduces both the structure and the physiology of the parental organ. Here we present a summarized description of the use of epithelial organotypic for the study of skin physiology, human papillomavirus biology and associated tumorigenesis.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Yasaman Shamshirgaran ◽  
Anna Jonebring ◽  
Anna Svensson ◽  
Isabelle Leefa ◽  
Mohammad Bohlooly-Y ◽  
...  

AbstractRecent advances in induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs), genome editing technologies and 3D organoid model systems highlight opportunities to develop new in vitro human disease models to serve drug discovery programs. An ideal disease model would accurately recapitulate the relevant disease phenotype and provide a scalable platform for drug and genetic screening studies. Kidney organoids offer a high cellular complexity that may provide greater insights than conventional single-cell type cell culture models. However, genetic manipulation of the kidney organoids requires prior generation of genetically modified clonal lines, which is a time and labor consuming procedure. Here, we present a methodology for direct differentiation of the CRISPR-targeted cell pools, using a doxycycline-inducible Cas9 expressing hiPSC line for high efficiency editing to eliminate the laborious clonal line generation steps. We demonstrate the versatile use of genetically engineered kidney organoids by targeting the autosomal dominant polycystic kidney disease (ADPKD) genes: PKD1 and PKD2. Direct differentiation of the respective knockout pool populations into kidney organoids resulted in the formation of cyst-like structures in the tubular compartment. Our findings demonstrated that we can achieve > 80% editing efficiency in the iPSC pool population which resulted in a reliable 3D organoid model of ADPKD. The described methodology may provide a platform for rapid target validation in the context of disease modeling.


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