Urine Sample-Derived Cerebral Organoids Suitable for Studying Neurodevelopment and Pharmacological Responses
Abstract
Cerebral organoids (COs) developed from human induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs) have been noticed for their potential in research and clinical applications. While skin fibroblast-derived hiPSCs are proficient at forming COs, the cellular and molecular features of COs developed using hiPSCs generated from other somatic cells have not been systematically examined. Urinary epithelial cells (UECs) isolated from human urine samples are somatic cells that can be non-invasively collected from most individuals. In this work, we streamlined the production of COs using hiPSCs reprogrammed from urine sample-derived UECs. UEC-derived hiPSC-developed COs presented a robust capacity for neurogenesis and astrogliogenesis. Although UEC-derived hiPSCs required specific protocol optimization to properly form COs, the cellular and transcriptomic features of COs developed from UEC-derived hiPSCs were comparable to those of COs developed from embryonic stem cells. UEC-derived hiPSC-developed COs that were initially committed to forebrain development showed cellular plasticity to transition between prosencephalic and rhombencephalic fates in vitro and in vivo, indicating their potential to develop into the cell components of various brain regi...Continue Reading
References
Citations
Datasets Mentioned
Methods Mentioned
Software Mentioned
Related Concepts
Related Feeds
Brain Organoids in Disease Modeling
Brain organoids are three-dimensional cell culture models derived from human pluripotent stem cells. Since they resemble the embryonic brain, they can be used to help study brain biology, early brain development, and brain diseases. Discover the latest research on brain organoids in disease modeling here.