An Efficient Platform for Astrocyte Differentiation from Human Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells

  • Julia TCW
  • , Minghui Wang
  • , Anna A. Pimenova
  • , Kathryn R. Bowles
  • , Brigham J. Hartley
  • , Emre Lacin
  • , Saima I. Machlovi
  • , Rawan Abdelaal
  • , Celeste M. Karch
  • , Hemali Phatnani
  • , Paul A. Slesinger
  • , Bin Zhang
  • , Alison M. Goate
  • , Kristen J. Brennand

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

291 Scopus citations

Abstract

Growing evidence implicates the importance of glia, particularly astrocytes, in neurological and psychiatric diseases. Here, we describe a rapid and robust method for the differentiation of highly pure populations of replicative astrocytes from human induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs), via a neural progenitor cell (NPC) intermediate. We evaluated this protocol across 42 NPC lines (derived from 30 individuals). Transcriptomic analysis demonstrated that hiPSC-astrocytes from four individuals are highly similar to primary human fetal astrocytes and characteristic of a non-reactive state. hiPSC-astrocytes respond to inflammatory stimulants, display phagocytic capacity, and enhance microglial phagocytosis. hiPSC-astrocytes also possess spontaneous calcium transient activity. Our protocol is a reproducible, straightforward (single medium), and rapid (<30 days) method to generate populations of hiPSC-astrocytes that can be used for neuron-astrocyte and microglia-astrocyte co-cultures for the study of neuropsychiatric disorders.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)600-614
Number of pages15
JournalStem Cell Reports
Volume9
Issue number2
DOIs
StatePublished - Aug 8 2017

Keywords

  • astrocyte
  • human induced pluripotent stem cell
  • iPSC

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