Abstract
IntroductionHuman induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs) offer great promise for regenerative therapies or in vitro modelling of neurodegenerative disorders like Parkinson’s disease. Currently, widely used cell sources for the generation of hiPSCs are somatic cells obtained from aged individuals. However, a critical issue concerning the potential clinical use of these iPSCs is mutations that accumulate over lifetime and are transferred onto iPSCs during reprogramming which may influence the functionality of cells differentiated from them. The aim of our study was to establish a differentiation strategy to efficiently generate neurons including dopaminergic cells from human cord blood-derived iPSCs (hCBiPSCs) as a juvenescent cell source and prove their functional maturation in vitro.MethodsThe differentiation of hCBiPSCs was initiated by inhibition of transforming growth factor-β and bone morphogenetic protein signaling using the small molecules dorsomorphin and SB 431542 before final maturation was carried out. hCBiPSCs and differentiated neurons were characterized by immunocytochemistry and quantitative real time-polymerase chain reaction. Since functional investigations of hCBiPSC-derived neurons are indispensable prior to clinical applications, we performed detailed analysis of essential ion channel properties using whole-cell patch-clamp recordings and calcium imaging.ResultsA Sox1 and Pax6 positive neuronal progenitor cell population was efficiently induced from hCBiPSCs using a newly established differentiation protocol. Neuronal progenitor cells could be further maturated into dopaminergic neurons expressing tyrosine hydroxylase, the dopamine transporter and engrailed 1. Differentiated hCBiPSCs exhibited voltage-gated ion currents, were able to fire action potentials and displayed synaptic activity indicating synapse formation. Application of the neurotransmitters GABA, glutamate and acetylcholine induced depolarizing calcium signal changes in neuronal cells providing evidence for the excitatory effects of these ligand-gated ion channels during maturation in vitro.ConclusionsThis study demonstrates for the first time that hCBiPSCs can be used as a juvenescent cell source to generate a large number of functional neurons including dopaminergic cells which may serve for the development of novel regenerative treatment strategies.
Highlights
Human induced pluripotent stem cells offer great promise for regenerative therapies or in vitro modelling of neurodegenerative disorders like Parkinson’s disease
Neuronal progenitor cells could be further maturated into dopaminergic neurons expressing tyrosine hydroxylase, the dopamine transporter and engrailed 1
This study demonstrates for the first time that human cord blood-derived iPSC (hCBiPSC) can be used as a juvenescent cell source to generate a large number of functional neurons including dopaminergic cells which may serve for the development of novel regenerative treatment strategies
Summary
Human induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs) offer great promise for regenerative therapies or in vitro modelling of neurodegenerative disorders like Parkinson’s disease. The aim of our study was to establish a differentiation strategy to efficiently generate neurons including dopaminergic cells from human cord blood-derived iPSCs (hCBiPSCs) as a juvenescent cell source and prove their functional maturation in vitro. Human induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs) derived from somatic cells hold great promise to study and treat neurodegenerative diseases. The usage of juvenile rather than aged human cells for generation of iPSCs is expected to have the advantage of lacking genetic mutations that tend to accumulate in adult stem and somatic cells over a lifetime, contributing to aging processes and cancer formation [20,21,22]. They can be collected without invasive procedures and the emergence of public and commercial cord blood banks predestines them for future clinical applications
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