Tissue Eng Part A. 2018 Jan 23. doi: 10.1089/ten.TEA.2017.0423. [Epub ahead of print]

Modelling Neurodegenerative Microenvironment Using Cortical Organoids Derived from Human Stem Cells.

Yan Y¹, Song L², Bejoy J³, Zhao J⁴, Kanekiyo T⁵, Bu G⁶, Zhou Y⁷, Li Y⁸.

Abstract

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is one of the most common neurodegenerative disorders and causes cognitive impairment and memory deficits of the patients. The mechanism of AD is not well known, due to lack of human brain models. Recently, mini-brain tissues called organoids have been derived from human induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs) for modeling human brain development and neurological diseases. Thus, the objective of this research is to model and characterize neural degeneration microenvironment using 3-D forebrain cortical organoids derived from hiPSCs and study the response to the drug treatment. It is hypothesized that the 3-D forebrain organoids derived from hiPSCs with AD-associated genetic background may partially recapitulate the extracellular microenvironment in neural degeneration. To test this hypothesis, AD-patient derived hiPSCs with presenilin-1 mutation were used for cortical organoid generation. AD-related inflammatory responses, matrix remodeling and the responses to DAPT, heparin (completes with heparan sulfate proteoglycans to bind Aβ42) and heparinase (digests heparan sulfate proteoglycans) treatments were investigated. The results indicate that the cortical organoids derived from AD-associated hiPSCs exhibit a high level of Aβ42 comparing with healthy control. In addition, the AD-derived organoids result in an elevated gene expression of pro-inflammatory cytokines IL-6 and TNF-α, upregulate syndecan-3, and alter matrix remodeling protein expression. Our study demonstrates the capacity of hiPSC-derived organoids for modeling the changes of extracellular microenvironment and provides a potential approach for AD-related drug screening.