Stem Cell Reports
Volume 9, Issue 2, 8 August 2017, Pages 600-614
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Article
An Efficient Platform for Astrocyte Differentiation from Human Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.stemcr.2017.06.018Get rights and content
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Highlights

  • hiPSC-derived astrocyte populations generated from 42 NPC lines

  • Transcriptomic analysis shows hiPSC-astrocytes resemble primary human astrocytes

  • hiPSC-astrocyte transcription is consistent with a non-reactive state

  • hiPSC-astrocytes undergo inflammatory response and enhance microglial phagocytosis

Summary

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.

Keywords

human induced pluripotent stem cell
iPSC
astrocyte

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7

These authors contributed equally