Functional differentiation of midbrain neurons from human cord blood-derived induced pluripotent stem cells

Introduction: Human induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs) offer great promise for regenerative therapies or in vitro modelling of neurodegenerative disorders like Parkinson's disease. Currently, widely used cell sources for the generation of hiPSCs are somatic cells obtained from aged individuals. However, a critical issue concerning the potential clinical use of these iPSCs is mutations that accumulate over lifetime and are transferred onto iPSCs during reprogramming which may influence the functionality of cells differentiated from them. The aim of our study was to establish a differentiation strategy to efficiently generate neurons including dopaminergic cells from human cord blood-derived iPSCs (hCBiPSCs) as a juvenescent cell source and prove their functional maturation in vitro. Methods: The differentiation of hCBiPSCs was initiated by inhibition of transforming growth factor-beta and bone morphogenetic protein signaling using the small molecules dorsomorphin and SB 431542 before final maturation was carried out. hCBiPSCs and differentiated neurons were characterized by immunocytochemistry and quantitative real time-polymerase chain reaction. Since functional investigations of hCBiPSC-derived neurons are indispensable prior to clinical applications, we performed detailed analysis of essential ion channel properties using whole-cell patch-clamp recordings and calcium imaging. Results: A Sox1 and Pax6 positive neuronal progenitor cell population was efficiently induced from hCBiPSCs using a newly established differentiation protocol. Neuronal progenitor cells could be further maturated into dopaminergic neurons expressing tyrosine hydroxylase, the dopamine transporter and engrailed 1. Differentiated hCBiPSCs exhibited voltage-gated ion currents, were able to fire action potentials and displayed synaptic activity indicating synapse formation. Application of the neurotransmitters GABA, glutamate and acetylcholine induced depolarizing calcium signal changes in neuronal cells providing evidence for the excitatory effects of these ligand-gated ion channels during maturation in vitro. Conclusions: This study demonstrates for the first time that hCBiPSCs can be used as a juvenescent cell source to generate a large number of functional neurons including dopaminergic cells which may serve for the development of novel regenerative treatment strategies.