1. Molecular profiling of stem cell-derived retinal pigment epithelial cell differentiation established for clinical translation
- Author
-
Petrus-Reurer, Sandra, Lederer, Alex R, Baqué-Vidal, Laura, Douagi, Iyadh, Pannagel, Belinda, Khven, Irina, Aronsson, Monica, Bartuma, Hammurabi, Wagner, Magdalena, Wrona, Andreas, Efstathopoulos, Paschalis, Jaberi, Elham, Willenbrock, Hanni, Shimizu, Yutaka, Villaescusa, J Carlos, André, Helder, Sundstrӧm, Erik, Bhaduri, Aparna, Kriegstein, Arnold, Kvanta, Anders, La Manno, Gioele, and Lanner, Fredrik
- Subjects
Biochemistry and Cell Biology ,Biological Sciences ,Neurosciences ,Stem Cell Research - Nonembryonic - Human ,Stem Cell Research ,Regenerative Medicine ,Eye Disease and Disorders of Vision ,Stem Cell Research - Induced Pluripotent Stem Cell ,Neurodegenerative ,Stem Cell Research - Embryonic - Human ,Aging ,Transplantation ,Stem Cell Research - Induced Pluripotent Stem Cell - Human ,Biotechnology ,Macular Degeneration ,5.2 Cellular and gene therapies ,1.1 Normal biological development and functioning ,Eye ,Animals ,Cell Differentiation ,Human Embryonic Stem Cells ,Humans ,Retinal Pigment Epithelium ,Retinal Pigments ,Large-eyed model ,age-related macular degeneration ,cellular profiling and transcriptome ,cellular therapy ,clinical translation ,differentiation protocol dynamics ,human embryonic stem cell-derived retinal pigment epithelial cell ,retinal progenitor cells ,single-cell RNA sequencing ,subretinal injection ,Clinical Sciences ,Biochemistry and cell biology - Abstract
Human embryonic stem cell-derived retinal pigment epithelial cells (hESC-RPE) are a promising cell source to treat age-related macular degeneration (AMD). Despite several ongoing clinical studies, a detailed mapping of transient cellular states during in vitro differentiation has not been performed. Here, we conduct single-cell transcriptomic profiling of an hESC-RPE differentiation protocol that has been developed for clinical use. Differentiation progressed through a culture diversification recapitulating early embryonic development, whereby cells rapidly acquired a rostral embryo patterning signature before converging toward the RPE lineage. At intermediate steps, we identified and examined the potency of an NCAM1+ retinal progenitor population and showed the ability of the protocol to suppress non-RPE fates. We demonstrated that the method produces a pure RPE pool capable of maturing further after subretinal transplantation in a large-eyed animal model. Our evaluation of hESC-RPE differentiation supports the development of safe and efficient pluripotent stem cell-based therapies for AMD.
- Published
- 2022