Morphological Changes in Neural Progenitors Derived from Human Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells and Transplanted into the Striatum of a Parkinson's Disease Rat Model

Introduction. Development of cell therapy for Parkinson's disease (PD) requires protocols based on transplantation of neurons derived from human induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs) into the damaged area of the brain. Objective: to characterize neurons transplanted into a rat brain and evaluate neural transplantation efficacy using a PD animal model. Materials and methods. Neurons derived from hiPSCs (IPSRG4S line) were transplanted into the striatum of rats after intranigral injection of 6-hydroxydopamine (6-OHDA). Immunostaining was performed to identify expression of glial and neuronal markers in the transplanted cells within 224 weeks posttransplant. Results. 4 weeks posttransplant we observed increased expression of mature neuron markers, decreased expression of neural progenitor markers, and primary pro-inflammatory response of glial cells in the graft. Differentiation and maturation of neuronal cells in the graft lasted over 3 months. At 3 and 6 months we detected 2 graft zones: one mainly contained the transplanted neurons and the other human astrocytes. We detected human neurites in the corpus callosum and surrounding striatal tissue and large human tyrosine hydroxylase-expressing neurons in the graft. Conclusion. With graft's morphological characteristics identified at different periods we can better understand pathophysiology and temporal patterns of new dopaminergic neurons integration and striatal reinnervation in a rat PD model in the long-term postoperative period

Induction of pluripotency in human endothelial cells resets epigenetic profile on genome scale

Reprogramming of a limited number of human cell types has been achieved through ectopic expression of four transcription factors to yield induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells that closely resemble human embryonic stem cells (ESCs). Here, we determined functional and epigenetic properties of iPS cells generated from human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVEC) by conventional method of direct reprogramming. Retroviral overexpression of four transcription factors resets HUVEC to the pluripotency. Human endothelial cell-derived iPS (endo-iPS) cells were similar to human ESCs in morphology, gene expression, in vitro and in vivo differentiation capacity. Endo-iPS cells were efficiently differentiated in vitro into endothelial cells. Using genome-wide methylation profiling we show that promoter elements of endothelial specific genes were methylated following reprogramming whereas pluripotency-related gene promoters were hypomethylated similar to levels observed in ESCs. Genome-wide methylation analysis of CpG sites located in the functional regions of over than 14,000 genes indicated that human endo-iPS cells were highly similar to human ES cells, although differences in methylation levels of 46 genes were found. Overall CpG methylation of promoter regions in the pluripotent cells was higher than in somatic. We also show that during reprogramming female human endo-iPS cells exhibited reactivation of the somatically silenced X chromosome. Our findings demonstrate that iPS cells can be generated from human endothelial cells and reprogramming resets epigenetic status of endothelial cells to pluripotency

An Efficient 2D Protocol for Differentiation of iPSCs into Mature Postmitotic Dopaminergic Neurons: Application for Modeling Parkinson’s Disease

About 15% of patients with parkinsonism have a hereditary form of Parkinson’s disease (PD). Studies on the early stages of PD pathogenesis are challenging due to the lack of relevant models. The most promising ones are models based on dopaminergic neurons (DAns) differentiated from induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) of patients with hereditary forms of PD. This work describes a highly efficient 2D protocol for obtaining DAns from iPSCs. The protocol is rather simple, comparable in efficiency with previously published protocols, and does not require viral vectors. The resulting neurons have a similar transcriptome profile to previously published data for neurons, and have a high level of maturity marker expression. The proportion of sensitive (SOX6+) DAns in the population calculated from the level of gene expression is higher than resistant (CALB+) DAns. Electrophysiological studies of the DAns confirmed their voltage sensitivity and showed that a mutation in the PARK8 gene is associated with enhanced store-operated calcium entry. The study of high-purity DAns differentiated from the iPSCs of patients with hereditary PD using this differentiation protocol will allow for investigators to combine various research methods, from patch clamp to omics technologies, and maximize information about cell function in normal and pathological conditions