Browse by author
Lookup NU author(s): Dr Dean Hallam, Dr Birthe HilgenORCiD, Dr Lili Zhu, Dr Min Yu, Dr Sanja Bojic, Professor David SteelORCiD, Dr Achim Treumann, Dr Andrew Porter, Professor Evelyne SernagorORCiD, Professor Lyle Armstrong, Professor Majlinda LakoORCiD
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0).
The availability of in vitro models of the human retina in which to perform pharmacological and toxicological studies is an urgent and unmet need. An essential step for developing in vitro models of human retina is the ability to generate laminated, physiologically functional and light-responsive retinal organoids from renewable and patient specific sources. We investigated fivedifferent human induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) lines and showed a significant variability in their efficiency to generate retinal organoids. Despite this variability, by month 5 of differentiation, all iPSC-derived retinal organoids were able to generate light responses, albeit immature, comparable to the earliest light responses recorded from the neonatal mouse retina, close to the period of eye opening. All iPSC-derived retinal organoids exhibited at this time a well-formed outer nuclear like layer containing photoreceptors with inner segments, connecting cilium and outer like segments. The differentiation process was highly dependent on seeding cell density and nutrient availability determined by factorial experimental design. We adopted the differentiation protocol to a multiwell plate format which enhanced generation of retinal organoids with retinal pigmented epithelium (RPE) and improved ganglion cell development and the response to physiological stimuli. We tested the response of iPSC-derived retinal organoids to Moxifloxacin and showed that similarly to in vivo adult mouse retina, the primary affected cell types were photoreceptors. Together our data indicate that light responsive retinal organoids derived from carefully selected and differentiation efficient iPSC lines can be generated at the scale needed for pharmacology and drug screening purposes.
Author(s): Hallam D, Hilgen G, Dorgau B, Zhu L, Yu M, Bojic S, Hewitt P, Schmitt M, Uteng M, Kustermann S, STEEL D, Nicholds M, Thomas R, Treumann A, Porter A, Sernagor E, Armstrong L, Lako M
Publication type: Article
Publication status: Published
Journal: Stem Cells
Year: 2018
Volume: 36
Issue: 10
Pages: 1501-1513
Print publication date: 01/10/2018
Online publication date: 13/07/2018
Acceptance date: 10/06/2018
Date deposited: 13/06/2018
ISSN (print): 1066-5099
ISSN (electronic): 1549-4918
Publisher: AlphaMed Press, Inc.
URL: https://doi.org/10.1002/stem.2883
DOI: 10.1002/stem.2883
Altmetrics provided by Altmetric
